An Axe is A Man's Best Friend
by Twisted Fate MK 2
Summary: (Commission) What happens when you take the bumbling idiot, loved by his family and supported by them, into a cold and analytical prodigy whose family pushes him under pain of death to put his natural talents to their use? This story, of course. (Abandoned)
1. Chapter 1

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 _ **Official Supporters:**_

 **Emperor King Perby**

 **Shadie**

 **DigiDemonLord**

 **Xager the Chaos King**

 **Greg Gibson**

 _ **If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction, alright? There's a thousand of you, so a dollar a piece would really add up and help me a lot! Once I reach five hundred Supporters of any value over a dollar, I will make a concerted effort to put out a chapter of something once every three days at the very slowest.**_

 _ **As of now, The channel and I are struggling financially. So please, if you're able, become a Supporter. We'll be uploading art and concepts soonish on a project of my own making too, and you'll get to be a part of it~! And I'll get dinner as a side benefit~!**_

 _ **I am also creating a Discord server specifically for my writings and separate from the Temple Walkers Discord server. This way, Commissioners can keep track of their commissions directly without any worries or problems off FF or Archive, and can communicate to me directly. Just DM me and I will get you a link as soon as I can, or try using this**_ _ **d is co r /a J h A**_ _**6Xk. Just remove spaces, FF deletes links usually.**_

 _ **I'm still new to it, so any advice or offers of assistance from my community would be appreciated and more than welcome.**_

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Black sheep, failure, dishonored, a waste of time and talent.

Huntsman, successful, honored and skilled beyond.

Six labels, three things Jaune was expected to be and three he was called as. Some others fit him, he was far more than just talented by any metric, but these were the most important of any and all he could possibly deal in.

Not to Jaune, of course, labels meant little to him.

No, he didn't care about these, but his family did. His family, who demanded he train his natural talents to be a fighter. Now, at the ripe old age of seventeen, he was standing in a Bullhead, trying desperately to keep the contents of his stomach located _inside_ his stomach rather than on the nice, clean, carpeted floor. A task that was steadily proving harder with each passing moment.

A stewardess passed by, and he accepted the not so subtly offered medicine and water, both meant to ease the tumbling of his stomach. She started rattling something off about allergies, but he waved her away. He had none, and his Aura would prevent it becoming a terrible problem anyways. Unlike his _blasted_ tumbling stomach, which persisted even while medicated and drowned in water.

He hated Bullheads with an immense amount of passion, and anything else that flew through the air for that matter. And he wouldn't be _on_ the blasted thing if not at his family's insistence that he go to Vale. Or, rather, to Beacon for Huntsman training. Arguing against that hadn't been remotely successful, he'd essentially been told to go or get out, and Ansel was a frontier town. An unarmed man, even a proclaimed prodigy, did not survive unarmed on the Frontier.

So he'd given in on that front, after hours and hours of arguing over several days of headaches and annoyances, and had ten thousand Lien in a sealed envelope shoved into his hands. Nothing to sniff at for most Frontiersman, but a negligible amount for a renowned Huntsman like his father. And an irrelevant amount for a family of known and successful Hunters, when his sisters were added into the mix. The amount to get him to Beacon, and pay tuition, and get books, and pay for meals was staggering to most. To his family, it was a triviality.

And that frustrated him to no end, in a variety of ways.

When he'd finally agreed to go to Vale - and damn if he hadn't made sure his language was quite clear on him going to _Vale_ \- they all proven be ecstatic at him finally 'giving in to wiser council for the good of all'. More like the good of the Arc name, he'd thought at the time and barely choked back down in the face of the smiling, insufferably happy family. Not because they were happy, that wasn't what bothered him.

It was that they were happy to have _forced_ him into something he didn't want, for their own reasons that very evidently didn't include Jaune's benefit.

The only solace he had was what he felt on his back and forearm, settled comfortably on his right shoulder blade and attached to a leather vambrace on his left arm. A simple enough broad-axe, with a small spike on the back of it and a curved, wooden handle wrapped in soft but sturdy leather like his vambrace, and a collapsible round-shield made of bronzed steel, both from his grandmother's days in Mistral, fighting Grimm and bandit alike for little to no reward beyond hot meals and enough Lien to keep herself maintained and her weapons strong. The axe could be recalled using the shield itself, which had a directed magnet of Atlesian design that would pull it using the axe-head. Recalling the weapons without getting slammed into by metal debris, or missing the catch and sending it flying past you.

Reminders, to Jaune at least, of what Hunters ought to be. Standing for the weak, not for their own wealth or glory. And most certainly _not_ what his family had become after her passing,years past in service as a Hunter to protect a village against bandit tribe known as one of the most powerful, but one who his father wouldn't speak about much. Out of sorrow for her loss or simple pride, or anything else that could motivate the selfish Arc patriarch, Jaune didn't know.

And he could barely muster the energy to care about it.

Regardless, he had the weapons and every intent on putting them to good use, at least eventually. It might be his pride, but he felt that he had no need of Beacon and certainly no desire to add Beacon's name to the list of Arc laurels. He had cut down every Grimm he'd ever encountered, and knew the ones he hadn't well enough to feel confident in dealing with them.

And he luckily had the other half of beginning a successful, independent life. That being his own savings,and the money foisted on to him. The former was next to nothing, the latter was the substance. And would be plenty for him to dip out of the Bullhead docks and vanish, off to live his own life. First to the docks to buy his way onto a ship to Mistral, or near enough for the job, and then wherever the Grimm and the wind took him. Free, helping the innocent, all in his own way and on his own will.

A perfect life, planned as perfectly as he could hope.

Until he stepped off the Bullhead, stretching and looking around, and heard a steely, "Mister Arc." On instinct and reaction at being addressed, he turned, a frankly gorgeous woman with a clipped pace and hard, if immensely attractive, features practically stalking towards him as she spoke, "Your parents contacted Headmaster Ozpin about you. Given the lateness of your enrollment, they expressed concerns that you may not find the way in time. I was sent by Headmaster Ozpin to retrieve you."

"I-I could have found my own way." He responded after a second, shifting his posture and crossing his arms, forcing his attention from her bust to her eyes faster than she should be able to catch, and feigning a confused offense. "I don't need a babysitter coming out her to walk me home."

"Yes, well, they disagreed and I am here regardless." She held out a hand, and added, "Headmaster Ozpin also wished me to collect the money for tuition, supplies, and the like while I already had you."

A hand moved to his pocket where the envelopsat, and he grimaced. He needed it, or he was stuck, "You just want me to _give you_ that kind of money? I don't even know who you are."

"That is… Fair, I suppose." She sighed, fishing a small badge out of her bust while Jaune not-so-subtly watched and hoped for a peak at hat was under that tight looking outfit. She handed the badge to him, and he looked at it as she spoke, "I am Headmistress Glynda Goodwitch, of Beacon Academy. I serve as a combat teacher and a financial advisor and manager in addition to that role. Which means that you would be paying me the tuition, so I can ensure it gets filed properly in time for Initiation. In just a few days time I might add, if you are still hesitant to trust me for some strange reason."

After another second of thought, he sighed and pulled the envelope out of his pocket, handing it and the badge back together in his unarmored hand, "Sorry, Missus Goodwitch, I was just being cautious. I hear about us frontier kids getting tricked in the big Kingdoms all the time, you know?"

"There is nothing to apologize for, Mister Arc, you are simply being cautious. Were it only the case that half my students were as prudent and cautious as you." She smiled, half diplomatically and half seemingly genuinely approving. "And no 'Missus', young man. I am as yet unmarried, and you will address me as Miss Goodwitch or Headmistress. Understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am." He clipped back, the woman nodding her approval and turning to lead him away without a word.

Within ten steps she was talking, or lecturing rather, about Beacon's history and his own pedigree and records, thankfully paying more note and even credit to the latter than the former.

Something Jaune _almost_ appreciated as much as her frankly criminal legs, or at least those criminal boots of hers. Black leather, with fine stitching along the seams and at the backs of her knees, well made so that her long strides didn't wrinkle the fitted leather as she practically strut through the streets and seemed to simply pretend the gawkers watching the way her hips moved with every step or the way her bust bounced gently simply didn't exist. His eyes drank in every inch of the tight boots hugging her legs, roaming up along the thin leggings she wore and further up, to the firm rear only a foot away from him.

She coughed politely to grab his attention, looking over her shoulder with a small smirk, and he averted his eyes to look around the city as they made their way. His feigned innocence didn't fool her, and he knew that.

After a moment she chuckled, looking back forward, "There's no harm in looking, so long as you know your place and show me the respect due once I _am_ your teacher. I'm far too used to young men leering at my rear end to find it the most evil thing in the world. If it bothered me, I wouldn't dress as I do."

Of course, his eyes didn't linger on her ass, even if it look like carved granite had merged with soft velvet and had a love child named 'Goodwitch's rear end'. No, they ventured further south, where firm leather lung to firmer muscles on long, lean legs the black material tantalisingly teasing what lie underneath, and the feeling of his hands on the leather, feeling it and the flesh under it moling to his fingers.

Eventually though, they reached Beacon's Bullhead docks, a smaller version of where he'd landed owned and run by Beacon solely for its staff and students. They waited for a couple minutes before Goodwitch spoke, "Ozpin wished for me to speak to you, before we headed to Beacon."

"About?" He asked, snapping out of his reverie and fantasy and turning to look at the blonde. She raised an eyebrow and he grimaced, "About what, Miss Goodwitch?"

"About your coming here." She answered quietly, voice still echoing in the practically abandoned waiting area. "It isn't a far leap to see you don't want to be here. Your father personally calling to request a favor, and asking that you be _escorted_ here? Initially by Ozpin himself? That couldn't and didn't come from nowhere. The most likely answer, we feel, is that you were made to come here."

"They… Refused to let a prodigy go to waste, they said." He explained after the longest second of his life, debating whether he should trust this to her. Eventually, he'd decided the information couldn't really hurt _him_ so why bother? "It was either come here to be trained, or get kicked out of Ansel with nothing but the clothes on my back. And no axe, either."

"A death sentence." It was phrased as a question, but not stated as one. Regardless, he nodded and she swore, "The Arcs are known for being uncompromising, but threatening that is just… Utter madness."

"It's why I'm here." He agreed, nodding simply and shoving his hands in his pockets. "They made threats I wasn't willing to call them out on, so… Now I'm stuck here, against my will to the extreme."

"Then… Give Beacon a year." She suggested, looking up as a Bullhead spun slowly in the air and began to descend to land. Theirs, he had to guess. "Give us a year, let us… Convince you to stay at Beacon. If you don't wish to, we can find some other path for you. You don't be the first to choose a… Less regular method of making your way in the world."

"What would that entail?" He asked, the woman shrugging. Either because she didn't know or didn't care, he couldn't tell, but she seemed a kind enough person. Surprisingly so, considering her outward appearance and appearance.

"Normal items of a Hunter's lifes. Hunting Grimm, hounding dangerous, Aura enabled criminals, scouting our regions, security or sensitive locations or even expeditions into Grimm territory, all those sorts of normal things." She summarised earnestly as the Bullhead touched down on the raised platform before them, giving him an almost sultry smile and dipping her eyes down for the shortest second of his life, "As well as potentially more… Intimate and personal matters."

"What…?" But she was gone, quickly making her way up the ramp and into the unusually large Bullhead, stopping at the top for only a moment to smile over her shoulder at him knowingly and duck into the Bullhead before he could actually say anything or do anything more than blink and look down.

The small tent in his pants drew a large blush from him and, adjusting it and trying to ignore it altogether, he climbed aboard the Bullhead itself as well.

Maybe Beacon wouldn't be terrible after all?

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	2. Chapter 2

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 _ **Official Supporters:**_

 **High Priestess, Luna Haile**

 **Priest, Xager the Chaos King**

 **Acolyte, DigiDemonLord**

 **Acolyte, Emperor King Perby**

 **Initiate, Shadie**

 **Initiate, Greg Gibson**

 _ **If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction, alright?**_

 _ **I am creating a Discord server specifically for my writings and separate from the Temple Walkers Discord server. This way, Commissioners can keep track of their commissions directly without any worries or problems off FF or Archive, and can communicate to me directly. Just DM me and I will get you a link as soon as I can.**_

 _ **I'm still new to it, so any advice or offers of assistance from my community would be appreciated and more than welcome.**_

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 _ **For all who have asked and possibly will, yes. Jaune has the Leviathan Axe. It is essentially a crossover at this point, which is fine. Other elements - not characters - will likely blend in as well. I will be describing the armor as well, but will confirm here that this set is the Reaver Set you can get early on. I, personally, made much use of it when I rented God of War and played it.**_

 _ **Because on higher difficulties defense is life. Some bosses literally one-hit me in anything else.**_

 _ **I confirm this because I don't want to have to spend a dozen paragraphs describing its intricacies - which I enjoy doing that, mind, it's just a time thing - and can simply keep moving through the story. I did, however, make some tweaks to its design. Nothing at all major, of course, but minor tweaks to fit the character.**_

 _ **Hope you all enjoy.**_

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"You know, Mister Arc, there are half a dozen staff members that could run the training rooms for you." Professor Goodwitch said, sighing and smiling thinly to show she meant nothing behind it. "While true that this room is technically mine for combat classes during semesters, that doesn't mean that I am the only one that can run the systems."

"If I'm bothering you, then you don't have to help me." Jaune returned simply, standing behind her and adjusting his armor subconsciously while he avoided the woman's curves like the plague. "I'm not trying to bother you or anything."

"It is no bother, Jaune." She said quietly, pressing a few buttons on her Scroll to activate the lighting systems and Aura monitors. Jaune watched the Aura reader boot on for a moment before he looked back to hard, bright green eyes. "Just wondered why you seem so… Intent on spending time in my training ring, with me particularly."

"I just… Wanted to train, Professor." He answered, grabbing one of his wrists and pulling his arm over his chest to stretch the muscles out. He grimaced when a prim eyebrow arched disbelievingly and added, "You're, uh, the only person here I know, so… And I don't like people, so I didn't want to-"

"To talk to strangers?" She finished, smiling when he grimaced and nodded. After a moment, looking at her Scroll needlessly and turning around, and she smiled when she felt his eyes on her back and lower. Without looking, she asked, "So you don't like people at all? Isn't that a strange sentiment to hold, especially for one who wishes to be a Hunstman?"

"I don't-"

"You didn't want the _title_ of Huntsman." She chided gently, turning back to look at him and taking a seat at one of the benches students used in the year to watch the spars. Aching feet, she found, tended not to be helpful in teaching lessons, so she gestured at the one across the walkway from her, "Take a seat, Jaune. I am a teacher after all, so I feel I should do my job, year start date be damned."

After a moment of hesitating, a hand unconsciously reaching back to thumb the handle of his axe anxiously, he sighed and plopped onto the bench, "Fine. I guess just… Teach away, then, if you want to."

"You say you don't like people, but I find that is likely not the case. I challenge that, because someone who hates people would not wish to help them. You have a disdain for the title and ceremony of Huntsman and Huntresses alike, not what we _do_." She smiled to match the thin line of his lips, that same eyebrow raising knowingly, continuing after a second of the young man's silence, "I think you rather like people. You just disdain people you think aren't worth your time. People you don't respect."

After a minute, Jaune sighed, "I don't like the pomp and circumstance of Huntsman. It's… needless. Why should Beacon's graduation be some national event? It should just be… Something expected."

"And the reason you are here corroborates that." She observed, Jaune nodding curtly at the assertion. "Not here for our training, or our facilities, or Oum not even our weapons making facilities and smithies. Rather, so your family can merely claim the…. Prestige, I suppose, of having a Beacon graduate in their family."

"Yeah…" He sighed, crossing his arms over his blue-armored chest and turning to look out at the arena. More to avoid eye contact with the woman than anything, but he expected she knew that. "I… Guess that's why I like you. You get it."

"Oh?" She smiled warmly at the young man, watching him thinking. The way his eyes moved to the floor and narrowed, and his foot tapped absently, knee bouncing like you might do to amuse a small child. "But Jaune, I may not enjoy them per se, but I do like them. It is important for the people of Remnant to have these ceremonies, it grants us their trust."

"Us fighting and dying should give that to us already." Jaune grunted, looking up at her, "We're the ones who risk our bodies and our lives, and evene our wealth, to protect them. We shouldn't need to… To bend over backwards just to get them to trust us. I can cleave a Grimm in half with my axe, that should be enough."

"Perhaps, but it isn't." Glynda argued simply, Jaune watching her expectantly for more. After a moment of looking for the right words, she continued, "People have… short memories, for good and ill alike. Many atrocities were committed by the Faunus during the Great War, not to say the Human Kingdoms were innocent. The same short memories which require us to constantly reinforce their trust is what grants the Faunus some margin of forgiveness."

"But why do we _need_ that?" Jaune asked, sounding frustrated to an extreme. "I'm strong enough, why do I or anyone else need accolades and ceremonies to show it off? I'd rather just kill Grimm and move on to the next one, If I am to be a Huntsman."

She could sympathise, it was an issue sometimes left out of curriculums. But Jaune had obviously never had it explained, so she pursed her lips, "The ceremony of these things make people happy, Jaune. They make them feel involved. We are an intimidating thing in their lives, don't forget. What is a gentle strike to us could cave in the chest of any of them. Us being some alien entity they know nothing about makes them fear us. And I trust you know what such fear and mistrust would draw."

"Grimm." Jaune agreed, sighing and nodding. "But still, I can't help that it… Is so damn frustrating."

"Precisely." Glynda smiled that same knowing and pleased smile, "As much as we don't quite enjoy these ceremonies for what they are, you and I are alike in this, these are incredibly necessary to our jobs."

"I guess that makes sense." Jaune sighed, staring at the floor between them absently with a dissatisfied grimace. "I don't have to like it, though."

"No, and nor do I." Goodwitch smiled good naturedly, watching him for a moment as an idea sprung into her mind. Slowly, she crossed her legs, Jaune's eyes following the purposeful movement of her calf lifting, resting the inside of her knee on the top of her other and holding it with her hands comfortably, "It is quite… enjoyable to me, you know, to have these kinds of conversations with someone. You're quite intelligent, for one so young."

He forced his eyes away from her legs, the tight leather of her boots hugging the toned legs tightly under equally tight stockings that barely hid her delicious thighs, and making his chest constrict when he saw that same almost teasing glint in the professor's eyes. He swallowed, throat suddenly dry, and she tilted her head to the side and let her hair fall away, exposing the pale expanse of her neck to his eyes.

"Jaune?" She asked, voice low and carrying an edge he didn't understand, "Are you well? You seem quite… Flushed, suddenly. Do you need to visit the nurse, maybe?"

"I-I'm fine." He answered quickly, voice cracking only slightly. The Headmistress' smile grew and Jaune tried to ignore her, "And… Thanks. Everyone back home always said I was too smart for my own good, and cocky. It was always aggravating, they didn't even consider what I said. Just insulted me and moved on. Not like you."

"Oh?" She breathed quietly, watching his reactions with an amused sensation. For someone so mature and intelligent, he was… Easily flustered. Amusingly so. Some light flirting and a slight show of skin, not even particularly naughty skin at that, and his blood had rushed north and south alike, no doubt. "But surely someone of your talent and lineage must have been quite popular, particularly among those your own age and not pursuing this profession."

"Not with anyone I wanted to be around." He shrugged simply, "Just girls that thought my muscles looked good and couldn't think themselves out of a paper bag, guys that thought that since I worked out we had to be buds, and people on all sides after my last name. No one worth my time, you know?"

"Why not?" She asked, returning her head to a more normal position and letting her hair fall back over her neck. Seeing him relax, she smirked and crossed her arms under her bust, pushing her breasts up and drawing his eyes to them, much to her internal amusement. "What about them was so aggravating to you?"

"Just… They were so immature, I guess." He sighed, tearing his eyes from her chest and looking at her face. She smirked and his eyes widened a fraction, the younger blonde looking away from her sparkling, amused eyes, "Always screwing around, talking about useless, unimportant things, and just… Being annoying."

"Even the girls?" Glynda asked almost shyly, Jaune's eyes looking to hers for only a moment.

" _Especially_ the girls." He answered, sighing, "My parents kept trying to pair me off with immature girls who didn't know a damn thing. They were boring, and frustrating, and frankly that made them really unattractive."

"You prefer your women more… mature then, I take it?" She asked with a teasing and almost sultry purr, watching him stiffen at the tone and avoid her eyes again. "And I suppose you haven't found any women like that as of yet? None which particularly… Catch your eye?"

"I-I would very much like to train now, Ma'am." He said quietly, the older woman suppressing a chuckle at his embarrassment. "I don't, you know, want to take too much of your time."

"Oh Jaune, you can have as much of my time as you need. I always make time for students who show initiative like you." She said, standing and taking a step down the stairs towards the arena floor. She hesitated when he stood, looking over her shoulder and tilting her head at him alluringly, "And for you, especially. No matter _how_ we use our private time, or where."

She made sure to add a sway in her step, and felt his eyes rake over the curve of her firm behind and lower, down her legs, all while she smiled, "Now then, I shall order out some drones for you. Make sure you are quite prepared." He stepped past her, and she called out as he left, "I hope your sword skills impress me, Mister Arc."

She didn't miss how quickly he left to go to the arena's floor, and chuckled at it. He was simply too much fun. Now to see if what was said about his prowess in combat matched his wit and surprising maturity, before she made her choice.

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Many Huntsman and Huntresses didn't much like armor, and the aspiring trainees his age reflected that, he found early on in his involuntary career learning and training as a Huntsman. They preferred 'skill', by which they meant wearing next to no real protection - or clothing even, sometimes - over actual defense. And it seemed like it had become sort of… Normal. Accepted, treated like a normal thing and part of what made a Huntsman or Huntress great.

None of which mattered to _Jaune_ , of course, who thought going up against thing that could rip and tear flesh apart with their claws in bloody _skirts_ and _dress shirts_. Which he found frankly ridiculous in a way he couldn't quite put into words. And which, of course, had meant _more_ arguments with his insane family that had tried to insist that he stick to 'traditional Hunter equipment.'

Which had been a hoodie and some light bracers and boots, with nothing more than cloth, Aura and flaccid prayers between his internal bits and whatever wanted to sodding _taste them_. An argument he won by saying he wouldn't actually take the position in Beacon if he couldn't wear _armor._

'They didn't want him to die, only to fulfill his duty' they'd said, and he'd sighed. They had an odd sense of _duty_ , at least to him. But so long as he got his armor, he didn't care, even if it was still at least a _solid_ bit lighter than he'd prefer entirely. Still better than a hoodie and not much armor aside from that.

He wore thick black, military cargo pants with built-in defensive padding throughout that made it look bulky and thick, like a gambeson almost but slimmer and hugged against his legs protectively, accompanied by light, dull silver knee pads sewn into the knees of the pants for added protection. Not enough to stop, say, an Ursa's claws but something like a Creep or even a Beowolf should glance off or get caught in the cloth of the pants.

The pant legs' padding cut off halfway down the shin, designed to work with the matched pair of heavy combat boots he wore that they were tucked into which covered the half of his shin the pants didn't. The boots were heavy and weighty, made of thick leather over cloth that kept his feet warm and safe, from attacks from outside the boots and the chafing that such rough leather could bring and all the way back to simple weather and water. Good, solid layered steel a tenth of an inch thick was layered on the shins with thick laces, adding a bit more protection along the shin itself and leaving barely any gap between the metal there and the knee pads above them. Otherwise, they appeared as plain combat boots, like he'd seen in stores throughout Vale. The pants, too, looked like ones on sale in stores and worn by civilians alike, if you removed the knee pads that themselves looked - even if they were clearly built differently and for different purpose - like skate-pads, even if they were slightly thicker than normal and sewn into the pants.

His thighs were covered by a large, flat piece of hardened leather sewn onto thick cloth that hung over his front and rear, protecting most of his thighs and hips. A dozen thick, red leather pieces with hard metal tips hung around his waist under that, serving as decoration but also able to catch strikes from claws and blades, pinning themselves between the weapon and his leg to protect him. It wasn't perfect, and he'd have liked more protection, but it let him move freely and fight easily.

Equally thick leather armor protected his chest, ornamental golden design on the front worn down by time. Thicker leather shoulder-guards rested atop his shoulders, pinned in place above his _annoyingly_ bare upper arms. A hook for his axe hung off the back right shoulder where it hung right now. Worn but comfortable and thick gauntlets protected his hands and forearms, simple things of cloth under heavy and hardened leather.

He'd had to buy it second-hand, which sucked, but it had taken a strike from his father's sword so he didn't mind. It was sturdy, protective and didn't inhibit his movements, and that was all which mattered to him in the end, really.

"How many drones would you like to be challenged by?" Jaune looked up at hearing Goodwitch's voice, the woman leaning on the concrete railing that surrounded the training arena. She smiled down at him and added, "These machines are formidable enough. Third years face up to ten of them at once. I suppose five would do for you? That is normal for end-of-term first years."

"Four, please, ma'am. Melee variants only." He answered instead, the woman looking marginally disappointed until he added, "I've never actually fought these before, so fighting the maximum number meant for my year would be kind of arrogant of me, especially with ranged components. And kind of stupid."

"Ah." She smiled, nodding understandingly and smiling approvingly, "You are quite right, Mister Arc. My apologies for suggesting such foolishness. I suppose I got ahead of myself. Please, let me know when you are quite ready."

He nodded and an alarm sounded, a synthesised voice announcing, "Energy field raised. Arena compartmentalized successfully. Unscheduled activation registered. Please input command override." Goodwitch pressed a card to a reader on her Scroll and the voice chimed again, more pleasant this time, "Override acknowledged, Professor Glynda Goodwitch. Please prepare yourselves for live combat exercises. I repeat, please prepare yourselves for live fire exercises."

A small panel in the arena's wall, previously hidden, slid back and a set of four black Atlesian Drones lumbered out mechanically, stepping just outside the openings before they slid closed behind them, Glynda calling out, "These are Atlesian Knight 130s, designed for training use here. For an initiate first year such as yourself, defeating _three_ is considered challenging with a partner on your side. I will be… I suppose highly impressed works if you can defeat _four_ of them."

They fanned out in front of him, standing a few feet apart from each other and extending the blades of their right arms in preparation, standing with their arms hanging limply at their sides and simply waiting for some manner of command. Jaune nodded, raising his axe in preparation.

"Engage."

One of the drones lunged for a slash as Jaune brought his axe up, parrying the blow with the flat of his axe-head and giving the droid a swift push to the side and away with his shield to separate the group more. He lifted his axe to throw it but relented and turned from the staggering machine when he heard the mechanical feet behind him move.

The next two came in for a slash as Jaune let his shield collapse down and blocked the slash of one's arm with his axe's haft and pushed it to the side, following through as he ducked under the second droid's slash and turned, raising his axe high over his right shoulder. He brought the haft of the axe into the drone's abdomen to force it back as well and give him breathing room for his counter on the first droid.

Almost immediately, he took the opportunity to turn bury his axe into the drone's shoulders from behind, unintentionally beheading it along with a chunk of the shoulder's internals amid the grating sound of ripping steel and the electrical hum of sparking cords on his metal axe. Yanking the blade and letting the maimed machine fall back with a heavy clang, he turned with a smile to the next droid.

He slashed as he heard another heavy metal footstep behind him slam into the concrete beneath him, and spun quickly with both his hands gripping the haft of his axe and swinging up and into the machine's chest.

Or aiming for it at least, the droid seeing the attack and moving its right arm in the way, sacrificing the limb to the bite of his axe as it was flung back and slammed into the wall it had previously emerged from. It landed on the ground in a crouch and staggered up, its leg damaged from the journey, raising its blade menacingly before Jaune's axe embedded into its chest and sent it sprawling across the ground.

The third slowly circled as Jaune turned to it and extended his shield again, seeming to plot a course as it lunged once more, sending a flurry of small slashes and stas at Jaune's face and chest as he backed away and used his shield toward them off. Smiling, Jaune kicked on his magnet and inverted it for half-a second, the powerful magnetic push enough to stagger it back.

Roaring loudly, he charged and slammed his shield up and into its chest, lifting it by its chest off the ground and then leaping over it to throw it to the ground. It landed on its back and splayed out on the ground for a moment before trying to rise, a heavy boot slamming into its chest forcing it down before Jaune punched down on its neck with the rim of his shield once, twice, and then three times before its neck sparked violently and he _wrenched_ with the shield, using it like an axe to splinter the steel away.

The machine fell limp and he rose, turning and pointing his shield at the axe embedded at the droid against the wall and kicking on the magnet. With a dull sound of groaning metal it came free and flew towards him and he lowered his shield, plucking it from the air as it flew by with his other hand and returning it to his back with a satisfied, almost relaxed sigh.

He gave the droids a pleased glance and a nod, and then turned, heading towards the stairs that led back up to the stands where Goodwitch was standing.

"So, did I do well?" He asked as he approached her, the taller woman standing with a hip cocked and watching several janitorial droids clean the broken machines up and clear away their debris. She turned her head to glance at him sidelong and raised an eyebrow with a small, thin smile, and he added, "I know I shouldn't have thrown my axe like that. It was stupid to do with an enemy still in front of me."

"I think you did quite well." She said simply, turning to look back out at the arena. "I have never seen someone, in theirs first encounter with them, utterly annihilate the 130s so completely. So entirely crushing a victory is… Unheard of in first years."

She turned to look at him and he shrugged almost sheepishly, collapsing his shield self-consciously, "I'm… Good at fighting, I guess. It's not that big a deal."

"I disagree." Glynda said, turning to look him up and down and sitting on the railing, "You are… Impressive, Jaune. Quite impressive indeed." A lip tugged upwards and she raised an eyebrow at him, "I quite like impressive men."

"Thank you?" He tried warily, the woman chuckling in amusement at him and shaking her head. He swallowed nervously, her bright green eyes twinkling in amusement and excitement, and he reached back to finger the grip of his axe absentmindedly, "Is...something funny, Miss Goodwitch?"

Smiling, she pushed off the railing and flicked a hand at him, and Jaune stumbled under an invisible force that yanked him off his feet and towards her. She caught him deftly, arms wrapping around his chest and gripping at his back, and he felt her lips press against his a moment later. After a moment he relaxed, his hands settling on her hips while their lips moved against each other. She nipped at his bottom lip and he _just_ felt her tongue tracing out the shape of his lips and starting to press in when she pulled away.

She flicked open her Scroll with a sour look, their hips pressed against each other while Jaune _kicked himself_ for wearing armor so thick he couldn't feel her through it and a hand holding onto his off shoulder's pauldron, "Damn it." She gave him an apologetic smile and a sidelong glance, "Trouble in Vale, Jaune. I apologize but I must be going."

He stammered out a most intelligent, "Durr?"

Chuckling, she pressed a kiss to his cheek and pulled away, her heels clicking as she walked away from him and called back, "We will speak later, Mister Arc. Enjoy your evening while I deal with whoever ruined mine."

When the doors closed he managed a much more eloquent, confused but not actually _offended_ in any way, "The hell?"

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **New Guy (Guest) :**_

 **Uh, yeah?**

 _ **Jaerskov Tempestwing :**_

 **As a Commission, it means I am finding out items on a shorter spectrum than in a planned story of my own. Those stories are usually mapped out in summary weeks before being written. This is an issue with me being new to Commissions in general. Apologies.**

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 **Well, good news for you!**

 _ **Lord Goliath the Od :**_

 **Honestly? Gonna redo it at some point. Was kind of a stream of consciousness story at first and now I wanna do a real one based on the premise.**

 _ **Lord Owl :**_

 **Yeah, working hard at that. Not** _ **perfect**_ **yet, and I have some failings, but I am doing my best and hope everyone enjoys it.**


	3. Chapter 3

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Twenty hours, twenty two minutes and counting.

That was all the time between now and Initiation, a day that would forever decide his life's path. All the time left to plan, prepare, and make sure his equipment was ready as he could make it. Time to hone his axe, tore up calories, rest, repair his armor and get his head into the right state for the coming fighting and the people involved, all hopefully done before all the _other_ first year 'hopefuls' started trickling in twelve hours from now or so. Most of which, he already knew, would probably aggravate him until his head felt like it would explode. Especially since he'd been informed that they _all_ would be bedding down in the auditorium, together, in order to 'sew connections between the strangers that would soon be comrades in arms' according to Ozpin.

Which was a very bullshit way to say 'make people get used to other people', veiled for some reason he wasn't sure about as a camaraderie push instead. Why, he didn't know, but it rubbed him the wrong way and he did _not_ like Headmaster Ozpin for it. People

Luckily, Beacon had a great many facilities set up specifically to help its students with literally every single avenue of a Hunter's life. Everything from a tailor to help students repair and customize their gear as needed or wanted all the way to where he himself was, the smithy and engineering building. Tucked against the training hall, where combat courses would be held during the year's lessons, just down the hall from the locker areas and around a corner, it was… Well, impressive frankly, even to Jaune's _very_ exacting standards and demands of a place like this.

A dozen rows to either side of a room, with work benches covered in small cases containing every tool one could need, gripping devices and vices, drills, presses for shaping steel and making ammunition, with a rolling chair for the student who would be working at the individual work areas. At the back of the room, spare parts, metal, Dust for ammunition, paint, whetstones and everything else one might want that couldn't be left lying at the stations themselves. Huge, five jointed arms to hold pieces of armor or large weapons in any position required were tucked against the back wall of each workstation, collapsed into small berths for them to sit in without being in the way. Bright fluorescents hung overhead, well-maintained and without a single flicker to them, basking the entire area into bright, stark white light.

And Jaune was sat in the furthest back one, chair rolled into the corner on his area and watching the door, slowly scraping a whetstone across the blade of his axe in long, methodical strokes while he hummed. His shield lay on the desk beside him, broken down into each of its ten slats and with its mechanisms meticulously spread out n the desk, each evenly spaced and sorted into what it was and where it went. His armor hung in its disparate pieces from hooks he'd taken from the back storage area and attached to the work desks, a sewing and stitching kit resting on the table itself almost empty of everything it had held which had gone to his armor.

This quiet, the room silent aside from the mute hum of the lights overhead and the air conditioning and the gentle scrape of stone on steel, was something that Jaune had grown to enjoy after a time, when he was younger and training. He would often do more than was needed,hone his axe sharper than necessary maybe or reinforce stitching in his armor's lining for no reason but to pass time, when he wanted to think.

And gods if he didn't need to think now, after what had happened in the training arena.

The analytical part of him said one thing, or rather, a list of similar things. It noted that she'd clearly used her Semblance, to pull him towards her. That it really hadn't made much sense for her to spend so much time around him, and she'd seemed quite calm when she'd pulled away from the-act-that-shall-not-be-thought to check her Scroll. And that part of his mind wondered _why_ she would do that.

And more accurately and importantly, why to _him_ would she do something like that?

Not that he minded, or rather not that he minded the _kiss_. But the why of it vexed him and worried him, his natural paranoia questioning her motives.

But then there was the other, treasonous, part of him that told him he shouldn't _care_ why she had pressed against him and kissed him with those soft, warm lips. Instead it nagged at him, complaining about his armor which had been too thick to feel her against him, and encouraging him to seek out _more_ of those sweet lips, pressing against him and-

"Damn it!" He snarled, slamming his axe into the ground hard enough that sharp and hardened steel bit into cement. Sighing, he left it there and turned, going to work piecing his shield back together and inspecting each piece, carefully slotting it back into place, "God damn women. Why must they complicate literally everything I try and do, no matter what?"

And why did he care?

What about this was _different_ to him?

He actually flinched when his Scroll, sitting on the work desk near him, chimed gently to alert him to a message. Flicking it open he grimaced when he saw a picture of Glynda andher name, along with the message, "Where are you right now? We should speak about a couple of things, preferably before students start to arrive in any real numbers."

He almost, _almost_ to the point of closing the Scroll before opening it again with a sigh, staring at the message and tapping his fingers along the metal rim of the device. It was very sudden to have to decide his opinion on this, but maybe that wasn't by her design. Maybe instead, before assuming a woman was doing something untoward, he should pay her the respect he'd felt only a couple days before and listen to her.

"The armory." He finally answered, sending the message and the following it with a second, "Sorry it took a second to answer. Was sharpening my axe and didn't notice the Scroll chime for a second. What do you want to talk about?"

"I'll be there shortly." The first answer came, a few seconds before the second arrived, "You know what I want to speak about, Jaune, don't feign ignorance. That sort of act is far beneath your station, or the station you deserve at the least. When I get there we will speak at length, so try and be mostly done with your work before I arrive. If you are able, at least."

Sighing, he sent back an "Okay" and got back to his work, carefully piecing his shield together. His humming was gone entirely now, all sense of peace the act normally brought him gone in favor of a racing heartbeat and muddled thoughts about the blonde woman. Everything was ingrained in him, maddeningly so, now and it was annoying. The way she walked, the quirk of her lips, the sway of her hips and that knowing glance she'd throw over her shoulder at him if he looked at those very hips.

It was insufferable, but… He didn't mind _that_ terribly, or at least not specifically he found after a second's thought. Why?

Carefully, with steady fingers coming from age old practice, he set the last piece of his shield's internals into place and sat back, cracking his neck before leaning back in to double-check the internals. It would be kind of embarrassing to die because he misaligned a gear or mechanism and his shield failed him at the last moment, the intricate wire frame giving way under a blow it should have withstood and collapsing with the plates on top of it falling loose from their locking mechanisms.

Along with the fact he'd be dead, of course, he added to himself as an aside. Embarassing or not, he'd not be around to experience it and that seemed a fact he needed to reiterate to himself. His pride could not be allowed to come before his _survival_ after all,or he risked becoming something he despised as he was. He was more than self-aware enough to understand that, even if others his age couldn't think of themselves and their movements in the world beyond their immediate result.

Another ten minutes passed while he slowly, carefully slotted each piece of his shield's outer frame into its exact place, careful not to place a single piece in the wrong place lest he compromise the entire system's integrity. Gently locking each piece into place with a muted click, until the last one finally fell into place and he smiled, tapping his hand against the protective surface twice to check that it held. When it did, and when he heard the door on the other end of the room close, he pressed a button and let it collapse, setting it aside as the sound of clicking heels reached him.

"You know, Mister Arc," Glynda started, stepping up to his side and smiling at him when he turned his head just enough to meet her eyes. "While we anticipate damages due to the nature of our students and their weaponry, embedding your axe in the _floor_ isn't quite to proper standards of equipment usage."

He spared the axe a glance, still embedded in the cement and propped up by it on his left side, and sighed as he reached towards it and away from Goodwitch, "Sorry."

"Are you well?" She asked, eyebrow arching over an eye and sounding honestly concerned after he'd yanked the axe free and laid it onto the table above his shield, the younger blonde turning to his armor to start piecing it back together as well. "You seem a bit quieter than usual. Withdrawn even, almost."

"No, I'm… Fine, really." He shrugged, propping the front of his chest-piece on the edge of the table, the bottom resting on his lap while he started looping the thick armored shoulders to it methodically, answering with a quiet and cautious lie, "I'm not used to people being around when I'm working, that's all. Just used to the quiet, so… What do you want? Not to be rude, I mean."

"I apologize very sincerely for intruding on your private time then, Jaune." She answered, crossing her arms under her considerable bust that he forced himself to ignore, beyond the unspoken noticing of the extra button left undone that showed off just a _bit_ more of her pale flesh than normal. "But as I said, we needed to speak before the other elements of the student and faculty bodies arrive in their full and official capacities."

"About?" He asked, reaching to one of the hooks around him and grabbing the back of his armor, turning his suit around and getting to work looping it together there. Goodwitch was quiet for a moment, clearly waiting for him to come to the proper conclusions on his own, and he sighed, knowing full well what she wanted to talk about. "The kiss, then, I guess?"

"Quite astute, even if it took you a moment to answer it. And partially wrong as an aside." She chuckled when he gave her a confused look, actually pausing his work for a moment before resuming the stitching. "The conversation at hand is about that, yes, but also about our interactions going forward and what you wish them to be."

"What I wish them to be?" He asked, genuinely caught off guard, "You mean I have a choice?"

"Of course, Jaune, I am not going to force anything onto you." She smiled at him, actually softly and with a spark of warmth in her voice, "Your father has already done that to you, and it would be unbecoming of me to try and do so as well. If you like, then today can be our last encounter, aside from the average needs of a student in academics. I would, of course, prefer that _not_ be the case. But unlike others involved in your… situation, I will respect your autonomy."

He watched her for a long, long moment, eyes searching her face for any deceit he could notice, before simply asking, "Why me, though? I don't understand why you seem so interested in me."

"Perhaps for some of the same reasons _you_ are so interested in _me_ , Jaune." She responded coyly, smiling and cocking her head to the side, "Or have I been imagining you undressing me with your eyes every moment you get that doesn't have some distraction in it? Because I don't _think_ I imagined that, or your hands on me when I kissed you, or any number of times before that your eyes wandered."

"You're different." He shrugged simply, mindlessly reaching to the side and plucking the last shoulder piece to start stitching it onto the other side of his vest while he elaborated. "Respectable, powerful, and you get it. I like that, so… Sorry, I guess, if I bothered you or something. I didn't mean to."

"First of all, Jaune, a woman will tell you if you bother her. Usually with distinctly less kissing involved." The woman chuckled, shaking her head, and continued, "You've nothing to apologize for. I do, though. I didn't ask before I kissed you, I couldn't help myself, and I had a rough day, so I was stressed."

"It's… I didn't mind." He swallowed nervously, avoiding her eyebrow lifting in amusement for a moment as her nose scrunched, "But I still don't get how I could impress you. I'm good at what I do, I know that, but I'm nothing compared to some of the Huntsman working as staff here. Or a third or fourth year even."

"Physical prowess is only a facet of what I find so intriguing and exhilarating about you, Jaune. It's also your mentality I enjoy, your attitude which pulls me towards you." She looked him up and down, smirking, "Not that the physical aspect is not _quite_ enjoyable, of course. Which it is, by the way, you are quite the strapping young man."

"I, uh, you too?" He tried weakly, Goodwitch actually laughing while he sighed and set the finally finished armor aside, "Don't laugh at me, I don't _do_ any of this. I always just ignored girls so, you know, this isn't a field of expertise for me." And he did _not_ like that, he left unsaid, instead watching Goodwitch sigh good naturedly and shake her head, "But… What now?"

"Now, you decide what you want out of all of this." She held up a hand when he opened his mouth, and continued, "But not right now. Think on it for a time, it would be unwise to make a rash decision. And you neither seem to be unwise or prone to outright rash decisions. And besides, I haven't finished."

He gestured for her to continue with a nod and she did so, "The first thing you need to understand that regardless of where this goes," she gestured between them with a hand as she said that, "in our professional capacities, you will _not_ be treated any differently from any of the other students. Or faculty should this go that far, and you become one of us here, at Beacon. Regardless of my interest in seeing you succeed, and my other more… Intimate wishes, this is an inviolable principle of mine."

"I wouldn't tolerate even considering… _this_ if you weren't like that." He shrugged again, reaching up to scratch at his neck absent-mindedly and sighing at his inability to think of a better way to refer to whatever was happening between them, "The fact you are so principled and upright is part of why I get along with you. That and the fact you aren't all about fame and fortune all the time and damn the consequences or what would actually be doing what is right, like all these absolute _idiots_ I keep seeing in the news and in stories are."

"I understand completely." Glynda agreed with a smile, looking for a moment caught between wistful and regretful. "It is why I try to impart a more noble intent to being a Huntsman or Huntress onto my students. It does not always take, but… I never enjoy seeing someone so talented as those who come here losing their life for nothing more than _pride_. A tragedy which happens all too often."

"Not tome it won't." Jaune assured her, the woman humming and inclining her head. After a moment he,somewhat nervously in spite of how it erked him to be so, but ignored it and asked, "So what now? Are we done?"

"Yes." She tapped her bust gently, smiling when the motions that brought also brought a glance from Jaune, teasing him even now in the midst of a serious conversation now that the worst of that conversation had passed. "I have my Scroll on me always. Simply message me your decision, once you pass Initiation that is. I promise I won't let it affect your standing here, either way."

"Don't you mean _if_ I pass Initiation?" Jaune asked, smirking knowingly.

"Please, Jaune, don't fish for compliments. Not until you have made a decision, at least." She licked her lips, arms under her bust shifting purposefully to lift the mounds and draw his attention to them, "I wouldn't want to try and sway you, after all, with honeyed words."

As opposed to swaying him with swaying _hips_ and knowing smirks, he didn't say, but he knew she got the sentiment when he simply raised an eyebrow and she chuckled, "Forgive me, I'm taking too much enjoyment from this. It has been a while since I had someone respectable who I could actually tease without them demanding from me as a result."

"Is that a problem for you?" Jaune asked honestly, nodding at her, "I wouldn't think anyone would pressure _you_ for sex. Even if you were flirting with them, I don't think that would exactly be an appealing proposition."

"Propositioning me for sex is so threatening an idea to you?" She joked brightly, green eyes sparkling in amusement when he rolled his eyes and shook his head. "But to answer your question in direct, it should be a bit more frightening a prospect but that doesn't seem to register. Not until I pin them against a wall or ceiling and walk off."

"You pin people to walls often?" He asked, chuckling at the idea of her leaving some rich snob pinned to a ceiling, balls blue and face red.

"Depends on how much my partner might enjoy it." She practically purred, smiling at him in the most sultry way he'd ever seen. "Who knows, it might be something I enjoy, simply pinning a strapping young man against a wall with my Semblance and having my way with him. Letting him writhe and grasp at the air while I enjoy myself." He swallowed, feeling his blood pounding in his ears and rush southward, before she chuckled and sighed, "Not that I have ever tried, of course. What kind of woman do you think I am?"

"A terrifying one." He answered with a shrug.

"Good answer." She responded with a quiet chuckle, turning back towards the door, looking over her shoulder with a smile. "Do enjoy your evening, Jaune. I look forward to… Seeing how well you perform."

He watched her leave, shaking his head after she had gone and murmuring, "Women…" This time, though, there wasn't any complaint there. Returning to his work, he was much calmer and more content, humming as he double-checked his weapons and finished up the intricacies of his armor.

The majority of the rest of the day passed into evening in relative quiet, Jaune spending most of it working and fine tuning his gear as much as he could. Checking and rechecking, sometimes replacing minor components in the shield's internals if he could by making them in Beacon's Smithy Press. The craftsmen there were very fast at producing minor things, like replacing frames in his shield of the internal components themselves, and the work was of quite excellent quality even without the apparent master smiths actually there and available yet.

Personally, Jaune was quite interested in what they could do, given the already apparent upgrades. Upgrades which, while minor, were not so much so as to be insignificant.

This absent-minded but purposeful tinkering continued for the day, until Glynda sent him a message and informed him that it was time for all students meandering through Beacon to head to the auditorium, for an introduction to Beacon and to hear some of Ozpin's own words as well. The wording, this time, was far more officiated and even signed 'Headmistress Glynda Goodwitch' at the bottom of the message, along with instructions to save the name into their Scrolls for future use and recognition.

He found the speech… Odd, as he listened to the aged man speak and thought about it. Some of it he found himself agreeing with, the idea that the majority of those here were aimless, purposeless and restless, wandering around and just doing things for no real reason or purpose. But it was conveyed with a strange… Direction. Like he was speaking of something, or specifically to something.

It left him anxious and concerned, when the distracted sounding speech ended rather abruptly and they were told to rest for Initiation tomorrow. Interestingly, even though Jaune knew they could have simply had them stay in Vale or even used the dorms - mostly empty for another week until the Second and Third years started arriving - as housing for the night. The idea seemed viable, there was no way a bunch of fresh-faced first years could even hope to make that seem a bad idea. A few would probably act up, but most would not for fear of attracting undue attention early on or trouble, or worse simply being kicked out entirely.

Not to mention the loss of rest that would be regretted the next day, of course.

After that, for the few hours left before everyone had started bedding down wherever they could, Jaune had been forced to partake in two age-old hobbies of his. People watching, to scout out the rare individuals he was willing to deal with, and leaning in a corner and feigning menace to keep people generally away from him unless he approached them himself.

The latter of which basically meant relaxing in the corner and glaring at anyone who paid him too much mind, which kept almost everyone from wanting anything to do with him. As was his aim, of course.

"Jaune Arc?" Unfortunately, it wasn't a fool-proof tactic, and sometimes one or two people would slip through. Usually out of pride or misplaced hope to 'make a friend', or some other contrived and selfish nonsense. He turned a baleful gaze on a small woman dressed in all white,standing next to him where he leaned in the corner with his arms crossed, "You _are_ Jaune Arc, correct? Of Ansel and the Huntsman lineage that makes its home there?"

"Yes." He answered after a second, considering whether to simply ignore the prim young woman, standing straight back with hands folded in front of her politely. He knew her, of course, most people did, "And you are Weiss Schnee, now-heiress to the Schnee Dust Company and mildly renowned singer."

"I am… glad to be recognized so easily, even outside of Atlas." He'd already irritated her, by speech and not act, somehow. Barely noticeable and well-concealed as could be, just a slight twitch to her lips and a very quick balling of the hand under her right palm for a second, "I saw you over here and felt I should offer a greetings to you. We are both of renowned families, after all. It would not due for us toslight each other on accident and have our families align against each other."

"Mine wouldn't bother, frankly." He shrugged, "They are too occupied with their image as great Hunters to risk their Dust supply being affected. At least, not by me or my wishes. I doubt any 'slight' you might provide for them would do literally anything except make some public complaints for the attention."

"O-Oh." She swallowed, thinking quickly, "Well, still, I would rather that be avoided. If at all possible, I mean."

"Then consider it avoided." He answered simply, the young heiress seeming surprised. Sighing, and knowing he had to be at least _somewhat_ diplomatic with someone who could end up on his team, he added, "I don't do well with other people. So if you don't need anything, please leave me be."

"You… Do understand that you will be placed on a _team_ , right?" She asked carefully, head tilting to the side slightly and a small, thin smile playing on her lips, "Coming to Beacon isn't the best place for you, if you dislike other people with such intensity."

"And _your father_ knows that Faunus will be here in greater numbers than in Atlas, right?" He asked with a raised brow, the barb sinking home as he gestured around them, "A hundred hopefuls here, and twenty one of them are Faunus. How does the Schnee patriarch deal with his daughter fighting beside his slaves?"

"I-I… The Faunus working in our mines are welcome to seek employment elsewhere and-"

"And die, starving or freezing." Jaune finished for her, smiling thinly and sighing, forcing himself to back down a bit. "Look, that isn't my point. I don't care that I will be on a team, and your father and you don't care that you will possibly be on one with a Faunus. Maybe you even _want_ that, to prove something. Regardless, if my team is worth respecting and working with, I will. And if not, then... I will adapt to them and work around them."

"I… You are quite rude." Weiss huffed, crossing her arms now with a distinctly more agitated and offended look, "All I did was come over and say hello to you. I did nothing to deserve the treatment I am receiving."

He eyed her for a moment, thinking, before sighing, "Yeah, you did, but not as bad as I gave. I apologize. But you didn't come over here to say hello, or for any sort of politeness. You did it to protect your image, and that just… Just forget it."

Weiss turned to walk away, hesitated, and then spoke quietly over a shoulder, "I… understand my father has done a lot of harmful things toa lot of people. And I know that, in Atlas, I could have avoided dealing with any of that and been given an easier time. But… I didn't want that, that easy path of least resistance and accepting what he is doing."

"And how much opinion on what he does _do_ you have?" He asked carefully, actually curious to an extent.

"My sister, Winter, she left my father behind and let herself be disinherited, and I haven't been able to find out why." Weiss asked, half-turning and looking at him, "I want to know why. And such… uncomfortable answers would not come to me in Atlas. Not unless I join the military, and get myself disinherited as well."

"Too prideful for that, aren't you?" He asked, not genuinely thinking she was at this point. No, something else was happening here, and now he was _invested_ in finding it out. That much at least must have been clear in his tone, because all she did was raise an eyebrow and ask for more without a word, "Why else would you care about being disinherited so much as to risk not getting those answers?"

"Because if I lose my inheritance, I lose my ability to change things." She answered simply, Jaune nodding at the answer while Weiss smiled thinly and seemed to… grow wistful, or something like it. "Beacon is a good Academy, a good place to learn an honored profession's skills and history. A good place to make changes."

He eyed her for a moment, before simply grunting and saying, "Fine, then. Let me know what you need, if it comes to that, and I'll help you out if I can."

"I…" She blinked in surprise, "You went from spitting on my family name, to an offer of help, very quickly."

"And you became worth respecting very quickly as well." Jaune responded simply, shrugging and leaning his head against the wall. "Now, if you don't mind, I would like to get some rest. We have a lot of fighting to do tomorrow, and more, and I would like to be rested up for it."

"Enjoy your evening, Jaune." She answered quietly, sounding caught between offended still and a sort of silent excitement. He heard her heels click as she walked away, and then heard her arguing with someone else a moment later, and he slid to the ground and relaxed, preparing to fall asleep.

Annoying women, if respectable regardless. Why were there so damn many of them at Beacon?

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **The Impossible Muffin :**_

 **I consider that a compliment of the highest order. Professor Arc is one of my very favorite stories across Fanfiction. To be compared to that in any way is quite a tall compliment.**

 _ **Monsieur Mole :**_

 **And I love you, dear reader. Platonically.**

 _ **Hikari Niwa :**_

 **Yes, quite a backfire.**

 _ **Bukkake No Jutsu :**_

 **This Review quite amused me, in a lot of ways. Thank you.**

 _ **Killkill123100 :**_

 **I update as fast as my Commissioner likes and my fingers write.**

 _ **Lord Owl :**_

 **Less angst and more… Disillusionment. He doesn't feel someone should pursue life as a Huntsman for their own glory and fame. He finds it distasteful, and the language used indicates that and keeps in frame the anger he feels at being forced into that life to do precisely that thing.**

 **Thank you for the compliments, though. I mean no offence.**

 _ **X3 Runner :**_

 **Unfortunately, I do not believe Ruby will be romantically involved here.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **Official Supporters:**_

 **Grand Priestess, Luna Haile**

 **High Priest, Alvelvnor**

 **Priest, The Impossible Muffin**

 **Priest, Xager the Chaos King**

 **Acolyte, DigiDemonLord**

 **Acolyte, Emperor King Perby**

 **Acolyte, Maxentirunos**

 **Initiate, Shadie**

 **Initiate, Greg Gibson**

 _ **If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction so we can get your name in nice and proper, alright?**_

 _ **I am now, thanks to Supporters as listed above, stable and safe and working regularly on Fanfictions and an original, private project called Re:Programmed. Details**_ **will** _**be starting to come out within the next couple of months once I find an adequate animator.**_

 _ **I couldn't do any of this without you wonderful people's support, of every variety. Thanks to all you guys~!**_

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

Seeing to the managerial tasks required to run Beacon was a daunting affair, truly. And even that word felt, to Glynda Goodwitch, a word that fell short of how it truly measured up to challenge her every year. Each year brought more applicants and more Lien, more paperwork from the Kingdoms to maintain their facsimile of control and influence on Beacon itself, even as weak as it was. Even as patently and clearly _fake_ as it was, at the end of the day, Glynda thought with a shake of her head. Just old men and women with chins raised high so they could look down on everyone around them, sitting in chairs and pretending to control the world they knew.

The tiny, insignificant world they knew, of mindless animals called Grimm and little else of note to them, aside from bandits and other Kingdoms. So petty.

She shook the thoughts from her head as the elevator she was in chimed gently, the doors sliding open to show Ozpin's office spread out before her, the man himself gazing intently into his Scroll and reclining in his chair, gently stirring his coffee in his mog with a metal spoon while he watched whatever it was. Or read it, more likely, considering its silence as she approached. Even from here, she knew, she'd be able to hear any video playing.

No sooner had she stepped around the desk and begun laying the folders in neat, organized piles according to their importance and type then Ozpin spoke, nodding his head towards the balcony, "James is being quite aggressive in his pursuit of defense, once again, Miss Goodwitch. Sometimes I worry for him, he stresses himself so."

"Oh?" She looked up, through the glass and out past the balcony of Ozpin' officer, watching a trio of light frigates in the distance drifting lazily, the air around them buzzing with craft heading to and returning from patrols, as well as ferrying supplies and people into the Kingdom and city of Vale itself and back. A moment later a squadron of interceptors shrieked by the window, headed away from Vale on what had to be rallying orders, and Glynda returned, "He seems to be fielding quite the number of assault craft today. Is something the matter?"

"An odd number of higher tier Grimm, particularly of the avian and draconic varieties, has been reported surrounding Vale and, more pertinently to the graver matters of concern here, around the Initiation Forest." He explained, never taking his eyes of the Scroll as he talked, always somehow managing to sound bored and uninterested as he discussed such important things. "Three light frigates and a carrier, his message said, with a full enough compliment to deal with the Grimm threats and not alarm the citizens too terribly much. If you were curious. That is probably a part of why their air-force is acting in such great numbers."

"I'm glad he was willing to listen to you, and not draw too much attention to us." She answered idly, returning her attention to organizing the folders, while Ozpin looked at her and smiled thinly. "How is everything proceeding to that end?"

"As well as can be hoped, I'm afraid." He sighed, laying the Scroll down on the desk and turning from it and to her folders. Plucking one from the table, a last minute report on the safeties in place for the Initiation itself, he began reading it as he talked, "The weaker Grimm are being hunted down and destroyed and as many of the rest as possible are being herded away from the Initiation grounds. Not all are being found, though, I am sure. How fares the final preparations for Initiation itself?"

"I just finished a final inspection of the students, made sure all were readying themselves properly as well as being fed, and staged a final inspection of the equipment necessary to deliver initiates into the designated area. All the relevant information is here for you to examine at your will, Headmaster." He hummed, paging through the folder he'd taken, and she continued, "If you would like, I will meet with James and coordinate our standing force with his more acutely and supervise missions with him."

"James isn't here, Miss Goodwitch, he was rather busy dealing with something on Mantel itself." Ozpin's smile warmed slightly, watching her out of the corner of his eye, and he added, "Miss Schnee was sent instead and is in temporary command here in Vale's area, of the Atlesian detachment he sent at least."

"Wint- :Miss Schnee is here in command?" Glynda asked, at first excited and audibly so before she schooled herself into a calmer tone. "I wasn't aware she had come to Vale. Or had any plans to do so any time soon, either."

"The decision wasn't a long time coming, I am sure. The reports James is reacting to are recent ones, and the decision stems from them surely." Ozpin shook his head,eyes returning to the folder, and he added, "And even then he didn't do as I wished. He only sent sosmalla force due to Winter's inexperience in fleet command itself, not due to my requests on the matter."

"Unfortunate." She grimaced, sighing and feigning as disappointed a face as she could manage, in spite of her personal satisfaction at having Winter near. Even on official business, that still meant, "Has she been able to meet with you, yet? If he is grooming her for admiral positions, then it would do for you to have your own relationship with her. Perhaps even bringing her in and-"

"She is neither needed or in position to offer enough support in any manner and as such is not someone I am willing to risk admitting into our council." Ozpin interrupted, smiling gently at her and inclining his head, "Should she change in that regard, I would be more willing to risk it. But what we do, what that entails knowing, is not to be trifled with."

"I…" Disagreed, she wanted to say, but instead elected to trust Ozpin's judgement and instead said, "I understand, Ozpin. I merely wished to posit the option, that was all. Is there anything else you needed?"

"I noticed you have taken quite an interest in one of our new initiates." He mused, Glynda grimacing and swearing internally, forcing her outward conveyance of calm. "One Jaune Arc, if I am not mistaken? Impressing you is no easy feat, so I am curious as to your interests in him. And how you have been going about pursuing them, as well."

"I… I spoke to him, that is all, Headmaster." She started, letting out a breath and deflating somewhat. Ozpin had good reason to question who she spent her time with regardless of who and where, given what they and theirs were involved with. "We spoke for some time, and he struck me as a very mature, intelligent person. Far too mature and intelligent for the average, and the kind of person I believe you would respect quite a bit. He dislikes the pageantry of what we do,and instead seeks to just go about the acts of helping people."

"Someone for whom simply the act of heroics is, itself, what should be aimed for." Ozpin noted, nodding, "I see why you would find him so intriguing, then. Truly an admirable young man, and intriguing for it as well. Do you intend to train him, then?"

"As little of it as he needs, yes." She answered, Ozpin humming and nodding. She knew what he wanted and hoped that jaune would be receptive, but eager to change topics, instead said, "How many of these forms do you want me to sign for you this year, Ozpin?"

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

Jaune woke up early, as always far earlier than needed, and by the time everyone else began to stir and ready themselves for the day - and far before several of the professors began waking up students themselves - he himself was already dressed and ready to begin the day. From there he was led first to the showers where he got a private enough one, early as it was, and a similar reception to Beacon's locker room.

By the time the first people, sleepy and tired and dressed in a mix of sleeping clothes and civilian attire, started shuffling into the cafeteria to get fed under the supervision of half-a-dozen teachers and staff, Jaune himself was dressed and almost through his meal. And so by the time the same people began filing into the lockers, he was also already in his armor and patiently waiting for the time to get down to business, leaning against the wall next to the door with his eyes closed, occasionally scanning the crowd idly.

He managed to spot Weiss, dressed in the annoyingly typical attire of a Huntress, and she spotted him in turn and nodded her head politely at _else_ and he would have ignored her, but he knew her. So he inclined his head politely at her in return, and she went back to talking to the red-haired woman next to her idly. This woman, at least, wore _some_ armor, even if it was mostly on her legs and next to nothing protected her upper half aside from some armor on her forearms and a leather cuirass analogue of clear Mistralian design.

Still, he told himself, at least she protected her legs properly. A spear or claw in the thigh or knee spelled a dead man as surely one in his breast, and she used a shield he knew. Most Mistralians, especially ones like her who wore more traditionally designed armor, tended to use _some_ kind of shield. If it was large enough, she might have foregone heavier armor for the sake of movement, as bad a reason as _that_ tended to be in most cases.

Weiss said _something_ to the Mistralian, and she seemed to regard him for a moment so Jaune, respectful enough of Weiss' opinion at least, gave her a nod as well. She blinked, seeming surprised by the simple action, but returned her attention to Weiss a moment later and they continued whatever they had been talking about. Possibly him, considering the look he'd gotten and the thin smile Weiss bore.

But in what context? What were they discussing that involved him, and in a context that she was clearly willing for him to _know_ they were?

Deciding to shelf that line of questioning, lest he go mad trying to understand women, he turned his attention to the room around him at large. Full of well-trained,colorful people armed with all sorts of weapons, and mostly under-armored for the day's events. A select few wore armor but, like with the Mistralian's, it was lighter fare. Nothing heavy enough to, truly, do the job properly.

"Jaune?" He heard, turning to see Weiss and the woman standing in front of him, the former smiling politely. "I came to wish you luck, in the initiation. And to introduce you to Pyrrha Nikos, from Mistral."

"Nikos?" He grunted, raising an eyebrow and giving her another appraising glance. The woman seemed surprised at the blatant inspection, avoiding his eyes, and he remarked, "The champion fighter, correct?"

"I…" She seemed to deflate slightly, yet never did her smile waver terribly much. His eyes narrowed and he made a mental note not to gamble with this woman, with a poker face like that, but she moved on before he could think too much on it. "Yes. I have, ah, won a great number of tournaments. I'm sure that's where you recognize me from."

"More from the cereal box." He shrugged, the woman blinking in surprise at the incredibly frank statement, "The back had a biography section on people it showed. I used to read them when I was eating, for something to do. Forget the name though."

"I… Am also on a cereal box, yes." She responded carefully, as though unsure how to actually _respond_ to the statements properly. He'd surprised her, then, though he didn't know for sure how he managed it exactly. "I am… Happy to meet you, Jaune."

"Hm." He grunted, nodding his head at her and turning to Weiss again, "Was that all you needed then, Schnee?"

"Mst of it, yes." She admitted, looking around herself hesitantly and anxiously for a moment before stepping closer to him and dropping her voice. "I also wished to warn you, and Pyrrha too, of something my sister told me. She's here, in Vale, right now because a large number of high class Grimm have been reported all around the Kingdom's border wall."

"She and I are worried that…" Pyrrha sighed,clearly unhappy with the phrase, but continued anyways, "We fear that weaker students, and those simply unprepared for such foes as well, might not be able to deal with such creatures."

"So?" He grunted, the two women exchanging glances.

"We would… The two of us are going to be keeping an eye out for them, and trying to eliminate them if they attack." Weiss explained simply, "We would like it very much if you would assist us in this endeavor."

He stared at the Schnee for a moment before sighing and pushing off the wall, turning towards the door and grunting, "If I see one, I'll deal with it if I am able. But I won't be going looking for them out there, just so you are aware. This isn't a job for students, it's a job for the military and professionals."

"Then we should be careful, and work together." Pyrrha offered, looking at him when he stopped to look at her over a shoulder. "You and I… We are the strongest here, without doubt, and that brings a duty onto our shoulders. We must protect the rest of the students out there, if we are able."

"You are asking me to team with the two of you?" He asked quietly, turning around fully to appraise them more closely. Weiss, at least, nodded even if Pyrrha herself would not admit to it fully. Or _commit_ , rather. Grimacing, he crossed his arms over his armored chest and said, "I'm not going to be an _enjoyable_ team member for either of you, you know. You, though," he nodded his head at Weiss, "my family will enjoy me teaming with."

"And how much value do _you_ put in my name?" She asked in return, raising a prim eyebrow over her unscarred eye. When he snorted, knowing she knew the answering and therefore knowing why she had _asked_ , she smiled, "Precisely, Jaune. _They_ will value my name, but you won't favor it."

"Weiss has also explained some of what you said to her last night." Pyrrha followed up, the blonde prodigy turning a baleful glare on the young Schnee. The woman had the good graces to at least _look_ sheepish, though she stood her ground regardless, and the Mistralian fighter continued, "Don't give her such a look, she shared the information with me only after we spoke for some time. I find that I agree with you, at least in part, and for that reason I request your assistance against these Grimm."

"Do _not_ share my words or opinions with people on your own accord, girl. Were these words to reach my parents, they would prove to be bad for me." He growled, glaring at the young Schnee for several long seconds until, finally, she looked away. Then he sighed and relented, looking Pyrrha up and down before finally saying, "Fine, then. If you can find me, then we can deal with whatever Grimm we come across."

"If we find you?" Pyrrha repeated, smiling after a second and holding out her arm as the intercom sounded a call to assembly. He gave it a glance and she explained simple, "A shake, to our agreement. As warriors and as a wish for good fortunes."

"Very well, then. Good luck, I guess. Perhaps we will run into each other out there." He answered, clasping her forearm firmly. After a moment they released each other, and Pyrrha stepped past him. Weiss made to follow, and found herself blocked by his arm, "And Schnee?"

"Yes?" She asked quietly, looking at the arm and then what it was attached to warily.

His face softened and he moved it, sighing, "Don't get eaten by a Grimm out there, girl. It would be a waste, to see you die before you can accomplish anything worthwhile."

"Oh?" And eyebrow rose and she smirked, "Is that genuine concern, Arc? I had thought you incapable of it, truly." He grunted, crossing his arms and turning to step through the door and she added, "I will be careful, Jaune. As, I hope, you will be."

"Always am." He added simply, trudging along in front of her without another sound, aside from his armor scraping and clinking as he moved. He toyed with apologizing for how he'd reacted to her speaking to Nikos, but eventually rejected it.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

Outside, the sky was blue and empty, aside from the lumbering hulks of several Atlesian ships halfway between the forest, Beacon and Vale itself. Likely placed at the closest point to each one so that it could react quickly and efficiently to any threats, in any of the places, and with as little lag as possible. At least a hundred fighters and other craft buzzed through the air over Vale, and the space between it, the forest and the Academy. He could just barely make out several sets of them in formations and flying low, likely on strike courses towards targets he of course couldn't see.

None did so over the forest of the Initiation, though, he noted with narrow eyes as he stood on one of a couple dozen metal plates atop the cliff, far to the left with only a few other people near him on his left side past Nikos. No doubt launching pads, it was fairly obvious. But why _hurl_ them into the forest like that? They were supposed to form teams out here, so were they supposed to stand in their chosen groups or-

"Beacon Academy is surrounded by a forest, left largely unpatrolled and unmonitored beyond the very basics to ensure that the worst Grimm don't hide in it ahead of our students going into it." Ozpin interrupted his thoughts, standing on the edge of the cliff and looking out onto the forest around them, the green of the forest stretching out below them for miles. "This allows students and trainees like yourselves to experience combat against the true enemy of mankind in a relatively safe and controlled environment."

"Relatively speaking, of course. Nothing with the Grimm is ever safe or controlled, you understand." He was quick to add, turning to look at them and smiling at the weak joke. A few students in the long line-up chuckled and one even laughed outright, before Ozpin continued, "Out there, you need to understand, that _none_ of you are safe. There are safety measures and you are being heavily monitored, including and especially your Aura levels. Should your Aura drop unreasonably or dangerously low, help will be dispatched. And should that assistance prove to be required, as judged by the Hunter involved, you will fail the Initiation exam. Barring any extraordinary circumstances, of course."

"Now," he continued after a second for everyone to absorb the information, as the last Scroll was handed out by Miss Goodwitch, "I will allow Miss Goodwitch, the Headmistress here I shall remind you all, to complete the process of informing you of what is coming."

"Thank you, Headmaster Ozpin." She said, inclining her head as he turned back around and clasped his arms behind himself, gazing out at the forest as Glynda spoke, "The Scrolls you were just given are Beacon-issued and owned, but you may treat them as personal items regardless. These Scrolls are special in that they monitor the Auras of their owners and will be programmed to connect to the Scrolls of team-members. It also contains passcodes to your rooms, should the doors be locked, and a direct connection to the Beacon armory, where the lockers for your weapons' storage are. These will be broken down further tomorrow, for those who pass Initiation."

"Initiation at Beacon Academy is a simple affair, if a difficult one." She continued, "You will be launched into the forest via the platforms you are standing on. From wherever you land, assuming you manage the landing of course, you are to make your way North towards ruins located there. And there you will find artifacts clearly not from the ruins themselves. Recover these, alongside your partners, and your Scrolls will give you a location where you will be retrieved via Bullhead."

"Any questions?" She asked, eyebrow raised. After a few seconds, she nodded and said, "Very well. I wish you all luck in Initiation, and in your futures. Whatever they may be, for both those who succeed and those who fail. You will be launched shortly."

Under a minute later, he heard the first person launched into the air, quickly becoming a small dot on the horizon. A particularly yellow streak let out a cheer as it soared away, and Jaune rolled his eyes and sighed at the childishness. Pyrrha caught his eye, giving him a nod, and then she was hurled high into the sky. Followed very quickly by Jaune himself, arms and legs held back so he soared like a javelin into the sky until the apex of his flight, where he spread his arms and legs wide to direct himself.

As he approached a particularly sturdy looking tree, he plucked his axe from his back and held it across his chest with the blade facing towards his feet. Just as he was about to pass by the tree, he grit his teeth and lashed out with the axe, sinking steel into the wood of the trunk deep enough to anchor himself and break his fall. As he twisted, the axe head came free and he fell towards the ground, sinking the axe into the next tree and finally coming to a stop a dozen feet above the ground, sighing. He'd overestimated how far he'd go down, which meant he'd have to drop.

Yanking the axe, he felt the slightest give and smirked, dropping the distance and rolling across the dirt before standing, cracking his neck and turning with his shield extended. A moment later and his magnet called the axe into his hand, the blonde returning it to his back as he began to make his way past the tree and North, keeping his shield extended on the off chance he'd need it.

Which, a moment later, he did need it, catching a Beowolf on it as it lunged from behind a tree, snarling and swiping at him with its claws. He caught the blow on his shield, and the subsequent tackle that came, kneeling and lifting the shield over him before hurling it to the ground bodily, slamming his shield down on the back of its neck immediately and snapping it. The Grimm collapsed, and he rose, moving on without much thought for it other than to remark on it being alone and young.

Two things which didn't go together, not for Beowolves at least. They never travelled alone, ever. Not unless they had been culled but eventually won out against the Huntsman or soldiers attacking them, but it was too soon into the Initiation for that.

Which is why when another leapt at his back alongside a startled bird's cry in the tree above, he wasn't surprised, and rolled with it. His shoulder hit the dirt, his shield edge slamming into its ribs and forcing it aside so he could roll away. Coming up, he pulled his axe and watched it clamber to its feet, snarling and snapping its white jaws at him as it lumbered onto its hind legs and snarled, arms spread as it growled. It took one step forward, hauling its arm back in preparation for another strike, and Jaune slid his shield around in front of him, axe held back and ready to respond.

It lunged and he braced for the impact, angling the shield to direct it to slide to the side, and a crack sounded out as its head exploded. The corpse slammed into him and to the side, as intended, and he turned to look at it before looking further North where the shot had come from.

"Hello, Jaune." Pyrrha waved, lowering her rifle and approaching him with a wide smile. "I suppose we're partners now?"

"Hm." He grunted, stepping past her and heading North with the Mistralian on his heels, while he said, "We are. Let's get going, I want to get this test over with."

"What about-"

"And most people will be headed this direction, meaning we are more likely to run into them and any Grimm they are fighting. Which means that if there are any problem Grimm out there, they'll probably either be further North or _head_ that way when they get into something they aren't strong enough to handle themselves." He added, the Mistralian nodding understandingly and following behind him happily at that statement. After a moment he begrudgingly added, "Good shot, by the way."

"Thank you, Jaune." She responded quietly from behind him as they made their way. "I hope everyone is okay, though. What Weiss told me has me quite worried."

"They will be fine, Nikos." He growled quietly over his shoulder, "And if they are too weak to survive, then the teachers will intervene on their behalf and they will survive. Expelled or not."

"They have to be able to hold their own, though, Jaune." Pyrrha argued simply, closing the distance enough to walk just behind him instead, "And against Grimm of high enough class, the people out here quite simply may not be able to hold out."

"Then they'll die..." He asserted quietly, Pyrrha's green eyes narrowing at the back of his head. He sighed after a moment, never looking at her, but adding, "If you see anything odd, let me know. We can afford to check it out, there's not a time limit to the test as far as I know."

"I will." She answered, smiling slightly at the back of his head, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Weiss warned me you were a touch on the rough side, but you seem kind enough when the cards are laid out. I think we'll make a good team."

He just grunted and ignored her, moving on regardless at a decent pace. Though, as Pyrrha noticed, he still slowed down a touch and put his head on a swivel, scanning the forest around them as they went. When she stepped past him to lead the way, and gave him a wider birth as well to check further afield in the forest, he said nothing.

Which, she wagered, was as good as him supporting it outright.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **Za Warudo :**_

 _ **Might be a bit for**_ **actual** _**conflict, given the time setting.**_

 _ **X3 Runner :**_

 _ **Possibly, then. Possibly. I might test a few dialogue sets out later, see how it feels to have her kinda Robinning up in this bitch.**_

 _ **Lord Goliath The Od :**_

 _ **I appreciate, but contest, the compliments. My stories are not nearly as strong as Couer's from a purely narrative standpoint. Mine might, and I stress that word to the edge of its meaning, be a touch more realized but I even doubt that.**_

 _ **Might just be that I'm a fan of his, though, and don't like to compare myself. I have often come to dislike how little he spends on constructing worlds though, mostly because I am anal about that.**_

 _ **Monsieur Mole :**_

 _ **I hope that that continues, my friend.**_

 _ **Zenith Tempest :**_

 _ **If he ever stops commissioning, I might head down that route, and nix the lemons. I personally avoid them in narrative focused stories, as writing them is a different beast entirely to normal fare.**_

 _ **I also have lemons up right now, if you wish to peruse, but none which I call 'good'. Most are commissions or Neo.**_

 _ **Geralt the Guest :**_

 _ **Yeah, I see it too. Kinda merging Geralt and Kratos in my head a bit, were I honest.**_

 _ **Xager the Chaos King :**_

 _ **I need to reread Not This Time, Fate...**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **Official Supporters:**_

 **Grand Priestess, Luna Haile**

 **High Priest, Alvelvnor**

 **Priest, The Impossible Muffin**

 **Priest, Xager the Chaos King**

 **Acolyte, DigiDemonLord**

 **Acolyte, Emperor King Perby**

 **Acolyte, Maxentirunos**

 **Initiate, Shadie**

 **Initiate, Greg Gibson**

 _ **If you want your name on the lists of my stories and videos, head over to P a t. R e . o n and search for the Temple Walkers. Just let us know you're from Fanfiction so we can get your name in nice and proper, alright?**_

 _ **I am now, thanks to Supporters as listed above, stable and safe and working regularly on Fanfictions and an original, private project called Re:Programmed. Details**_ **will** _**be starting to come out within the next couple of months once I find an adequate animator.**_

 _ **I couldn't do any of this without you wonderful people's support, of every variety. Thanks to all you guys~!**_

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

The walk in the woods was, surprisingly enough, quiet for several long minutes. They couldn't hear anything important save the distant, almost silent, cracks of gunfire and explosions, and their own steps in the grass, leaves and sticks that littered the forest floor around them. And, to Jaune at least, this was a fine enough turn of events. A quiet romp in the woods, birds singing occasionally around them where they felt safe enough to, with little to actually _do_ aside from push on and be careful and attentive, as he always was. His axe stayed on his back with his hand on the pommel, and his shield stayed extended as well of course, both for safety's sake and out of habit.

Pyrrha, he noted with a small frown or mild disapproval, did not fare so well as that, though she followed him dutifully just far enough away to not hinder his swing for the draw of his axe. And she drew her weapon as a sword rather than a spear, to accommodate his weapon and what would appear to her as a lack of range. An astute, if incorrect, assumption to make and one that showed her experience in other people, their styles, and working with them to fight smoothly. Her weapon was likely designed for that very reason, to allow her to excel in any range herself, and support her allies as well.

His compliments, though, ended there rather abruptly.

Jumping at every crack of gunfire or distant, muted rumble of an explosion, and more than once did she actually jolt when he stepped on a stick, told him more than enough about how she'd been trained. An expert in the ring she may have been, but this wasn't a ring, or a controlled and guided bout to hunt some Grimm with bodyguards or trainers. And it showed greatly, her fear as palpable to him watching her over his shoulder as it had to be to the Grimm in the forest. Her blade shook in her hands, and her shield was gripped so tightly than any real strike would numb her arm and toss it aside.

Unacceptable.

"You've never done anything like this." Not a question, a statement, and Pyrrha knew it. And that he was right, judging from the sudden flush to her cheeks and how she looked away, "I thought so. You're terrified, Nikos."

"I am fine, I assure you." She tried the lie, a short glaring contest between the two ending that attempt fairly quickly, the Mistralian frowning and looking away, sighing, "I have fought Grimm before, only… I had support, people who would step in if I became overwhelmed. Instructors, guardians, and the like. No one ever depended on me to survive, not until now, and I find it… Disconcerting."

"No one's lives have to depend on either of us." He pointed out, the woman giving him a curious look. Amid the sounds of the forest and the cacophony of distant combat he explained, "We could simply do the Initiation and leave, if you prefer that direction. Their dependency on us is completely optional, if you remember. Our job out here is simply to get one of those things in the North and get back. No one will blame us for doing only what we're actually required to do."

"I will not leave my comrades to die, Jaune Arc." She snapped back suddenly, the blonde turning and giving her an amused once over as she squared up to him defiantly, coming to stand close enough that thanks to his height, if he leaned forward their foreheads could touch. "I swore to Weiss I would help those in need, herself included if it came to that, and I will not back down for some nervousness."

"Fear, more like." He goaded, narrowing his eyes at her and watching the way her jaw set itself, and her shoulders tensed at the accusation in his words. Surprisingly, though, she kept her peace while he talked. "You're afraid, not nervous, Nikos. Those are very different emotions, and I can tell them apart. As can the Grimm, and they _will_ swarm us if you do not calm yourself."

"I…" She sighed, shoulders drooping, and she nodded. Though he could tell she didn't like it, she knew he was right, "I can't help it, Jaune. Just… Once the fighting begins, I will be well. I just need to see them fall, fight them myself. You understand, right?"

"Yes." He sighed, turning and resuming their walk, talking quietly over his shoulder and forcing her to walk closer to hear him, "When I first fought the Grimm, I was afraid as well. It drew them in, and I was overwhelmed."

"And then?" She asked, after a few seconds of silence, raising an eyebrow and looking to her side, "What happened?"

"I ran, as fast as I could, and my father came to my rescue." Jaune shrugged, as though it were the most natural course. Which, in truth to Pyrrha, might just be the case. The Grimm could be terrifying and, while her pride pained to admit it, she had herself fled from her first fight with a Beowolf. "He cut it in two, and then backhanded me, and ordered me back into the fight. I argued, begged to go home, even tried to run at one point, and he told me to fight or he would strike me down himself and leave me for the Grimm to finish off."

"That's…" Pyrrha grimaced, shaking her head and clearly choosing her words carefully, "I don't wish to judge, you or your family, but that is… Terrible. For a father to threaten his own son with death like that is… Wrong."

"Hmph." He grunted, electing against telling her the circumstances of his coming here if that is how she felt about that, and moving on instead, "It worked, regardless. I felled a Beowolf, and then he cleared out the pack and we returned home. The next day, I stood my ground and fought, and felled three."

"Tough love, though it feels a understatement." Pyrrha grumbled, shaking her head and blinking at a realization, "You're distracting me."

"Am I?" He asked, smirking and feigning innocence, though he put little effort into it. "I wasn't aware I was doing that at all. Though, perhaps, if it worked I will live with taking the credit for it."

"It did, though you are terrible as a story teller." Pyrrha teased him, the young man simply grunting a response as they walked. After a minute of silence, lacking the annoying noise of Pyrrha's weapons trembling and with significantly fewer instances of her leaping at the dreaded sticks of the forest floor, she spoke again, "Thank you, Jaune. I appreciate you trying to help, even if it was a bit… Rougher than most would go for."

"I only wanted you to avoid drawing every Grimm in the forest to us." Jaune corrected shortly, "I don't care if you're afraid, so long as you keep your eyes forward and your weapon ready, Nikos."

"As you say, Jaune." She chuckled, shaking her head and following him, lifting her sword slightly, and jokingly adding, "My sword is yours, oh great Jaune Arc. Command me, and I shall swing it on your orders."

Ahead, along the thin, worn and almost non-existent path, two Ursa Minors emerged from the brush, pushing through what had to be a small animal path onto theirs and looking around. One spotted them and turned, snarling, which brought the other's attention to them. The second and large one lumbered to the side, close enough to the trees and bushes to block their way forward on the path with its partner doing the same on the other side. Not at any intelligent direction, beyond the base instincts of a predator corralling prey, he knew. He gave them a look, the smallish Ursa posing little threat to him.

Unhooking his axe, he spoke out of the corner of his mouth, "One of these is yours alone, Nikos. Fell it and you won't be afraid to face them alone any longer." She gave him a look, and he nodded, "You have the skill, you just need to use it, Nikos. Or are the fighters in Mistral so weak that you would be their champion, and a weak coward in the same breath?"

With a flick of her wrist, she strode forward as the sword shifted into a spear and the Ursai launched into a lumbering, thundering charge towards them. He took a step and turned, drawing his axe in the same breath as he rotated and hurling the weapon at the furthest Ursa. It embedded in its shoulder deep enough that most of the axe-head vanished into the fur and flesh, and the creature staggered under the weight of the blow as much as the pain, which let the other get ahead of it, which made Pyrrha's job easier.

Her first thrust was nervous, but true regardless, biting into its elbow as it swung its massive right paw down at her in the midst of its charge. Its original roar died in a strangled snarl of pain, and Jaune's shield caught it across the side of its face as he charged by, the edge catching it and stunning the Grimm. The Mistralian champion yanked her spear free and ducked under the swipe from its left paw, the attack clumsy and slow in its stunned state. When she came to her feet, she turned rather than stand and thrust her spear into its throat. The Grimm choked out a dying roar and staggered forward, and she let it go, her spear sliding free as it staggered away and the collapsed in a heap of dead flesh and fur, wispy smoke coming off it as proof of its demise.

At the same time, Jaune reached his own Ursa, hauling his shield-arm back like he was going to strike it with a punch. Instead, the rim of his shield bit into its other shoulder, hard enough to shatter bone underneath and drive it down to its knees as his hand wrapped around the hilt of his axe and yanked it free. It snapped its maw at his throat as he stepped back, and instead of biting down on the exposed flesh if his neck, Jaune's axe swung down into the side of its head, easily cracking the creature's pale mask and biting into the meat beneath, just above its jaw. He wrenched his axe down and its jaw _split_ open with a wet snapping sound, his boot slamming into its chest and driving it back to let the corpse land in front of him in the same movement.

Inside a minute, the first battle they shared as partners was done, and their Grimm lay dead.

"I told you, did I not?" he said, as Pyrrha closed with him and they turned to resume their trek, "You have nothing to fear out here save your own nerves. You had the skill, just not the experience of fighting them yourself."

"You struck it, though." She pointed out, gesturing with her spear at his shield, "With your shield, as you ran, you struck it across the face. Surely, I did not face the creature on my own, then. Correct?"

"You charged it, did you not?" He asked, nodding at her dead opponent and then turning to leave, "And you killed it as well, I barely stunned it. I'm your partner, you should expect me to do that sort of thing."

"But I thought the point was for me to kill it?" She asked, genuinely looking confused. Jaune rolled his eyes and she questioned, "Was it not?"

"The point was for you to stop fearing them." He shrugged, turning and heading down the path without another word. The Mistralian stared at his back for a moment, mouth agape, and then glance at the dissolving Grimm and sighed.

This was going to be a difficult partnership, she felt.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

"You throw your axe a lot, then?" Pyrrha asked after twenty minutes or so of content silence, Jaune sighing and nodding rather than answering himself. "How do you fight without it? Surely you shouldn't hurl your weapon away so carelessly, without a means to retrieve it. I also saw you throw it while you were in the air, when we were launched from the cliff." He didn't answer, and she continued, "Is it a Semblance, or-"

Wordlessly, he hurled the axe twenty feet ahead of them, using the magnet in his shield to recall it a moment later, "I can bring it back. It has a magnet set, one for each half of my weapon set and with special magnets matched to each other. My Semblance is close quarters, not something I can use for ranged combat. The magnet set lets me compensate."

"My weapon shifts into a rifle form, for a similar reason." She offered, holding the spear up and, with a casual flick of her wrist, Jaune watched it shift into a short rifle. "It's semi-automatic, and modeled after a Great War weapon of my grandmother's. I considered something automatic, but the weight became an issue."

"Decent." He grunted, looking it over. It suited her, he thought, even if it had clear shortcomings.

Crowd control would probably always be a problem for her, though he could help to that end some. As would the rest of their team, hopefully, when they were made into one fully. He would almost definitely be their holding fighter, the one taking all the damage from everyone else and serving as the anvil to their hammers. That left the duo at a noticeable disadvantage, though. He could hurl his axe, yes, but that was all and would fell but one Grimm, and she likely had ten rounds and no more.

Hopefully their team would have the members needed to make up for that weakness. Jaune didn't fancy dying because he couldn't shoot a bunch of Creeps down as they came, and was overwhelmed by their bulk.

"You, uh, did you design your axe?" She asked, when he didn't respond to her fast enough for her liking, and nothing around them was worth her attention staying on it. He gave her a look, his eyebrow raised, and she explained, "It looks quite nice, but I can't place the style. So I figured that you may have designed it yourself. Perhaps even crafted it."

"No." He grunted, fingering the haft where it was, hanging off his back. When it was clear that the answer didn't satisfy, he added, "It was a gift, that is all I feel like sharing right now, Nikos."

"Oh. I see." She seemed offended, and he opened his mouth to respond, but it died in his throat as three blasts sounded very close by, in rapid succession. Before he realized, his axe was drawn and held at his side readily, his shield held out in front of himself warily. Pyrrha was just behind him, shield held out and spear held back, "Those sounded close to us, very close in fact. Should we-"

"High caliber rounds, fired rapidly and from one source." He rambled, bouncing his axe in his hand, "Not fast enough to be automatic, though. Means it has to be a marksmen, of some kind, but firing that fast-"

"Jaune?" Pyrrha demanded, the blonde turning to look at her in thought at the sudden outburst. She pointed in the direction of the shots with her spear as two more sounded, "Do we need to go and help them, whoever that is? Decide, and do so quickly, please. They may be in danger."

"That is a marksman's weapon, being fired multiple times in quick succession." He said by way of explanation, turning and starting a light jog towards the sound, "Which means they are panicking, which means-"

"They are in grave danger." Pyrrha finished, Jaune grunting an acknowledgement as she ran beside him. It only took a few moments to reach the wide clearing, easily a hundred feet across in any direction. The duo came to a stop and, unsurprisingly, the first to speak was Pyrrha, "Weiss?"

The white-haired woman spared them a glance, standing over a young man unconscious - or dead - on the ground with his chestpiece caved in, her rapier held out defensively, "Help the dolt over there, you two, I'll watch this idiot. Keep him from being eaten, or anything to that effect. Ruby, get back here, we have backup!"

A red-clothed girl leap into the air at her words, the scythe spinning in the air before a round fired and hurled her towards them. The blade bit into the dirt to slow her down, the small woman riding it panting heavily when she stopped in front of them, "Hi. Name's Ruby. S'an Troll. 'M tired, out of breath, can say hey later, okay?"

"Get to the Schnee and the downed boy, Red, and tell her to get some fires going." Jaune ordered as the smaller woman rose, chambering another round into her rifle and watching the Grimm lumber towards them from across the clearing, limping slightly on one leg with smoke wisping from it. "These things are weak to it, they heal fast enough to outpace most weapons unless you freeze 'em or burn 'em. Fries the nerves that do the healing."

"Got it." She lifted her rifle, nodding at his words and breathing heavily from the fight previous, "Makes sense, none of my shots seemed to do much more than make it angry. Sometimes slow it down, too, but that wasn't normal, and I didn't know how I did it,and I'm rambling cuz I'm scared and-"

"Just go." He snapped, he girl letting out a surprised 'eep' but nodding and leaping into the air, another round sending her flying through the space between her and the Schnee. He turned to Pyrrha before he saw her land, and continued, "Are you ready for this, Nikos? I need to know now, and you need to keep your answer."

"I… I will try, Jaune." He tilted his head to the side, grimacing, and she swallowed at the clear enough demand for something more than that, "No, yes, I am ready as I can be. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will see it done, to the best of my abilities."

"Flank it, support me, and stay out of my way." He grunted, pitching his axe into the air and catching it lower on the haft, to give his attacks more reach, "And aim for the joints or eyes, if you can pull it off. They take a bit longer to regenerate when damaged badly enough."

"Alright. Good luck, Jaune." She nodded, sparing him a glance and then turning and breaking into a sprint in a wide berth around the Troll, weapon shifting into a rifle form as she went.

It snarled but the creature was just intelligent enough to not rush off after her, huffing and turning to him and the women behind him. And then its gaze went _down_ and he knew where its beady red eyes fell. The wounded young man, lying underneath Weiss who herself stood behind the red-garbed young woman, kneeling with her scythe's blade embedded in the dirt and the end of its gun barrel pointed at the creature's chest.

Trolls were among the more intelligent Grimm, as far as that sentence went at least, and tended towards strategy that went beyond the bestial kinds the Ursai had shown, or the pack mentalities some species evolved. They would wield weapons if they found them, like the massive stone slab resting across its broad shoulders, or in some cases Trolls had been said to wield mech-weapons they'd ripped off of the destroyed machines when they found them or destroyed them themselves, and some even wore scraps of armor from them or other machines of war and otherwise.

Trolls were also the strongest, at least for their size, and that held true for this one. Humanoid in form, with thick hide that itself looked even now like leather atop the slabs of muscle beneath it. Most of its torso and legs was covered in black fur, white, bony spikes interspersed around the surface of its shoulder and down its back, as well as a few serving as eyebrows. A few small plates about the size of his thumb dotted the creature's chin and neck. A white cap of bone rested on the crown of its head, two large tusks sprouting from it and hugging the side of its head almost like a helmet, protruding an inch in front of its jaw. The rest of it was rather bare, bar the chorded muscle and fur.

But Jaune knew better than to think for even a _moment_ that that meant anything at all. And he also knew that this was going to be hard to pull off.

Pyrrha came to a stop behind the Grimm, far enough from it to be safe, and levelled her rifle at the Grimm. The troll, in response, just huffed and turned its back on her entirely, letting its thick hide and regeneration overcome any damage she might do from there. Which was fine by Jaune, who smirked as he heard the woosh of Dust and turned, a tree behind Weiss bursting into flame and, with a thunderous roar, crashing down in the center of the clearing, bridging at least half of it, its tallest branches landing a few feet from and smoldering as the flames crawled up it and scorched the leaves and grass beneath them.

"What's wrong?" Jaune asked loudly, resting the haft of his axe on his armored shoulder and taking a few steps towards the Grimm as it watched the flame, growling lowly and looking between it and him as he spoke, "Oh right, your kind don't like fire, do you? I bet you'll like this less."

Hefting his axe, he thrust the head of it into the fire for a moment before pulling it free, the still glowing lowly in warm oranges and reds. Like the metal itself had become fire, and when he held it upm pointing a the Grimm, Jaune could almost swear he saw _fear_ there, "I imbue weapons with elements, Troll, and that means fire. To burn you out, like an infection."

It roared, defiant and primal even in the face of the one thing it might actually fear, and charged him with the slab of stone held high in both burly arms, and he smiled and matched it, charging forward with a roar of his own. Three steps from it, as the Grimm swung its stone bludgeon down, he leapt towards its legs and rolled between them. The stone slammed into soil hard enough he felt it, like a tremor ripping through the ground, and he howled as he slammed his axe into the small of the creature's back.

The sizzle of its flesh parting and scorching was lost in its pained roar, spinning abruptly and slam a fist into Jaune's shield hard enough to numb his arm and ptch him into the air, losing his grip on his axe as he went. He landed in a roll, digging the rim of his shield into the dirt and carving a furrow as he went to slow himself, and came up just in time to see Nikos launch herself at him. She ducked under a punch, locking her spear in one of the slots on her shield's side, stabbing rapidly at its face and forcing it to backpedal, its off hand warding off her strikes fearfully.

Jaune smiled at the clever ploy, the Grimm probably thought all their weapons burned, and was reacting to that.

Standing, he charged once again, and Pyrrha saw it as he closed the distance. Swinging her spear overhead like a baton, lashing out with the head each time it came around, she pushed it back and circled to its left, and Jaune pointed his shield at the axe in its back and called it back. The axe wrenched free and spun through the air and he caught it halfway, hitting a knee and spinning, sending the axe hurtling towards the back of one of its knees and chasing after it.

It slammed home there and the beast roared as it went down on the wounded knee, its left fist slamming into the soil suddenly enough to throw the Mistralian off her balance for the briefest moment. Just long enough for its other hand to wrap around her body, the Grimm flinging her at Jaune bodily. His eyes widened and he collapsed his shield, catching her with his chest and letting her bowl him over as a result, his legs flailing in the air as they tumbled in a mass of armor and limbs.

Quickly, he pushed her off and tried to rise, a massive foot slamming down onto his shield and driving it against his chest, and him into the ground under its crushing weight. The troll towered over him, glaring down and breathing heavily, leaning down and placing more weight on his already struggling body sadistically. When it was close enough he could smell its fetid breath, and could see next to nothing of the sky beyond its face, he spat in it and smiled.

Growling low in its chest, it reared back with a fist, aiming to pummel his head into the ground, and Jaune heard a high-pitched and defiant scream as a flurry of rose petals washed over him. Red, sytche spinning through the air with such fury it whistled, landed with a foot on either side of his head, lashing out at its face and scoring a strike across one of its eyes. It roared again in pain, this one louder and more shrill then the others, and stumbled back as Jaune rolled over and coughed while Ruby stepped away, following the Grimm with her scythe spinning.

The reprieve didn't last long, of course, the Grimm lashing out with a hand and wrapping her up, weapon and all, in its fist. She squirmed in its grip as it turned, glaring at her with its good eye, and then _slammed_ her into the dirt hard enough he heard bone crunch and _felt_ her cry. It towered over her, watching her roll over and try to drag herself away with her only remaining good arm while the other hung limp, and Jaune felt blood roaring in his ears as he staggered upright, his heart racing.

Then he saw his axe, laying on its other side with the Grimm between him and it, and the still smouldering wound on the knee closest to him, and smiled. Silently, and praying for her forgiveness as another fist drove into her back and she cried out, he charged and held his shield out to call on his axe. It met him halfway, but he drove the rim of his shield into the wound in its leg instead, deep enough to draw black blood and another cry of pain as it once more knelt with Jaune beside it.

And the handle of the axe buried itself in his other eye, Jaune wrenching it sadistically and holding on as it rose and stumbled away, slamming its fists into Jaune's back over and over again in a desperate bid to shake him off. When it finally sank to its hands and knees, he rolled away across the grass and rose, holding his axe and sucking airm waiting.

"What are you waiting on?" Weiss demanded, the first to speak and only one who could aside from Jaune himself, Red and Pyrrha herself unconscious from the titan's blows. "Kill it already, you blonde moron!"

He didn't answer, stepping around to its oldest lost eye, the one Red had taken, and waiting. When a bloodshot blue eye, freshly grown back, opened to look at him he brought his axe down on it and drove further, into its skull. It died almost instantly, but he yanked his axe free anyways and brought it down again, cleaving the skull in half.

Only when its body began to smoke did he turn, finally, and move towards Pyrrha, while the Schnee moved to her own partner, snarling, "What is wrong with you? Forget it, I'm calling for rescue, fighting one of _these_ and winning has to be a pass. Not that our partners have an option."

"What is her name?" Jaune asked, placing his axe on his back in spite of his protesting ribs. When Weiss gave him a look, he nodded at Red, "Her name. She saved my life, and I would know her name."

"Uh, Ruby." Weiss answered, surprised by the question as Jaune settled in to sit next to Pyrrha, reaching out to roll her into a more comfortable position to lay, on hr back with her hands at her sides. "Ruby Rose, I believe, though we just met so I may be wrong. Especially with," she flailed at the clearing around them and the Grimm corpse, at a loss for words, "all _this_ , I suppose."

"Ruby Rose." He repeated, committing the name to memory. "Call for rescue services, Schnee."

"You don't get to order me around, Arc, just because you-"

"Please, Weiss." He snapped, sighing tiredly. Tempers were flaring, her chided himself, and he couldn't be one to lash out here. She hadn't done anything to earn it, after all. The white-haired woman said nothing after that, until he heard her on her Scrolls explaining their situation.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_


	6. Chapter 6

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When Jaune's eyes opened next, it was to stare at a dark room around him, lying in a medical cot - judging by the machines arrayed around him, as well as a pair of simple wooden chairs and the symbol of Beacon on his blanket - alone in a small room with a window behind his bed and set to the side so he could see out of it where he lay. A clock overhead ticked, and a glance showed it to have just gone past six in the morning, which explained why there didn't seem to be any doctors around. Or at least not that he could hear, and the door was not thick enough that he wouldn't hear people walking. He ran his hand across his chest, feeling the wrapping there and the slight sting of the bruises under them, and grimaced.

"Yes, I understand you require more assistance, please contact Miss Schnee for it and-" Glynda saw him finally, sitting up stiffly in his bed, and blinked owlishly at him for a split second before she finished her thought, "Contact Miss Schnee, Nurse, and she will see you given support. They will only be infantry-men, but hey can follow instructions and help deal with the less wounded individuals."

She shut the door before whoever it was could respond, moving to the side of the bed and glaring down at him for a full minute before, finally, she spoke, "Jaune Arc, I would like to ask what possessed you to engage a fully matured Troll, with little effective support you could have known was there and with a man already down. Or are you unaware of its classification and the standing orders for students that encounter one?"

"Considering that I wasn't a student, no. I don't know the standing orders, Miss Goodwitch." He answered simply, the woman's mouth screwing up into a dissatisfied pout, and her arms crossing under her bust. It was almost cute, and he blamed the medicine they had no doubt injected him with to help him sleep while his Aura worked, and would have been if not for the hard eyes that glared at him. "And if you think I would have left Red or Schnee behind to die because of some orders, then you don't know me very well."

"You could have died." She pointed out, and he nodded.

"Yes, I could have." He sighed, leaning against his pillow and taking a deep breath and ignoring the sting that brought to his ribs. He met her eyes again a moment later and continued, "And they _would_ have if I had not stayed. A Huntsman's duty is to protect the innocent and his fellows, and I would have betrayed both by running away with my tail tucked between my legs."

"Better to die." He growled after that, eyes meeting Goodwitch's own. "I would prefer dying doing my duty to dying while I flee. Or worse yet, living as a coward."

"I… Gods, Jaune, don't you understand anything?" She sighed, shaking her head and flicking her wrist. A chair behind her lifted slightly off the ground and shot behind her, landing just as she sat down. Her Semblance, again, and so cavalierly shown off around him. But did that mean anything, or was he simply reading into things? "The young man you tried to save was named Cardin Winchester. You should know, he was dead before either you or your partner arrived on the scene. I have already debriefed Miss Rose and Miss Schnee on it, they arrived and the creature hurled him to the ground and moved to face them. You and your partner arrived shortly thereafter."

"So there was nothing we could do, then. Damn it all to hell..." He sighed, letting his head flop down onto the pillow under him. A more childish display than he would normally put on, but he felt justified in feeling a touch upset. He'd fought something that could have severely injured him, and could have killed one of the others. _Did_ kill some of the others, he corrected himself. "I understand, it's to be expected in this line of work, and he died well enough by any metric. What about the others who were with me?"

"Fine, aside from some injuries not dissimilar from your own. Which while rather serious..." She answered, glancing down at his exposed and bandaged chest. Her lips quirked in a smile and her eyes narrowed dangerously, something amusing or satisfying her and something else _also_ upsetting her at the same moment. "Are perfectly acceptable, in our line of work."

"They're alright, then?" He asked, saving deciphering the older woman's expressions for later.

"Miss Rose suffered several broken ribs and a fracture in her upper left arm and shoulder both. Miss Schnee was suffering from extreme Aura loss and fatigue, and held off the few Grimm that came before I and a rescue team arrived, and Miss Nikos suffered similar injuries as Miss Rose." Glynda rattled off rapidly, holding out the clipboard for him. He took it, and she continued, "That has all the details in a small medical summary on page three, in case you don't understand the medical technicalities. All are treated and recovering in rooms around here, along with the other wounded students from Initiation and troopers from Vale and Atlas both."

"At Beacon." He observed, nodding, "I and they passed Initiation, then, in spite of our inability to recover the artifacts as ordered."

"No, you failed Initiation outright." Glynda pointed out, and Jaune snapped to look at her in as much excitement at a chance of freedom and shock, the creeping anxiety and anger at failure threatening him. Goodwitch smirked at his reaction, and added, "Relax, Jaune, you failed Initiation but you and they are students of Beacon Academy yet. Were you not, you would have been remanded to Vale for treatment."

"The Headmaster granted each of you admission based on the 'honored enrollment' system. While you all failed Initiation, you were each granted tuition due to your performance." She continued, "As you had technically been disbarred as soon as we were dispatched to aid you, you were _technically_ no long even enrolled. As such, you could be granted immediate place among the student population if you performed an admirable display of skill, and the honor to be expected of a Huntsman."

"Like slaying a Troll and trying to rescue a wounded student?" He guessed, the woman nodding while he groaned and held a hand against his ribs. "Do I have to attend that aggravating graduation ceremony?"

"It concluded last evening, actually." Glynda answered, fishing a Scroll out of her blouse and handing it to him, "This is your personal Scroll for us within Beacon's grounds. It includes access to an account for your Lien allowances out of your tuition costs, as well as weekly allowances to supplement mission-needed supplies, and rewards for Grimm slayed."

"Team 'Journeys'?" He asked, opening it and looking at the team name displayed above pictures of them all. A moment later his eyes narrowed into a scowl and he turned a harsh, concerned eye on her, "He made _me_ the leader? What possessed that old fool to make me the damn leader?"

"It was actually at my suggestion that he elected to grant you the title over Miss Rose." Glynda deadpanned, Jaune's eyes widening only a fraction before she smiled and added, "Also, you are the one who took command of the fighters in the field. You also appeared to devise a plan of engagement against the Grimm threat and implemented it successfully with minimal casualties."

"I guess that makes it an obvious choice." Much as he disliked it, he left unsaid, but he felt she was aware of his sentiments to that end. "Fine. When can I leave the treatment room and see to my dorm? I'd like to get underway getting things in order. And have my personal items been sent ahead?"

"Within the week, I am told. Unless you elect to fight another Troll, of course." She answered with a spark of humor, gesturing at the Scroll again, "That will grant you access to the dorm, the cafeteria, and the like. You will also find an offer from the Headmaster and myself in the inbox of your Beacon mail."

He opened it with a few quick, simple key presses, skimming the short document for a moment while she waited, "You want me and my team for 'Specialized Expeditionary Trial' missions?"

"Missions with myself and other professors, as well as approved persons of equivalent esteem, in which you venture on specified, punitive hunts against particular Grimm of notable threat." She explained, sighing and shaking her head, "Honestly, it is a fairly standard item. You should already know this, Jaune."

"My family preferred me taught in practical lessons when they saw I excelled there over academic ones. Comparatively, at least." And they didn't truly need him to know anything other than how to swing his axe and hit Grimm with it until they died.

Or he did. He wasn't sure if his family cared which happened.

"I see. Of all the foolish, asinine, self-destructive…" She sighed, eyes closing as she forced herself to calm, even though she knew how stupid of an idea that was even on paper. Much less in the practical applications of a Huntsman's life. "Regardless of your parent's moronic decisions, this is a normal enough program. Though most have to wait for their third year to qualify, there are again exceptions for exceptional cases."

"Like killing the Troll…" Jaune sighed, closing the Scroll and laying it on the bed next to him, "If the others agree to this, I won't argue against it."

"I will see to speaking with them on the matter, then." She nodded, looking at him for a long moment before finally standing and moving towards the door. Her hand turned the knob, but she didn't open it yet, instead speaking over her shoulder, "I understand if your family left you feeling… Undervalued, Jaune. But here at Beacon, you have those that value you. Myself among them, and your team sure to follow as well. Be more careful, in the future."

"I will." He nodded, watching her back carefully and curiously. But she didn't say anything else, or stay for long, stepping from the room without another word or gesture. And he was left shaking his head, sighing, "Insufferable, confusing women…. Ah, the reward from the Troll."

Flicking open his Scroll, he found the account management system and gave it a glance. Ten thousand Lien. Not a shabby reward, and maybe enough to look into some upgrades down the line.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

"Durability is an important factor, yes, Jaune. But not for all fighters or styles of combat." Pyrrha argued, sounding good-natured about the whole thing even as Jaune saw how tired of it she was. Two weeks of the same argument would do that to anyone, but Jaune was less than willing to budge entirely. "And on a team, not everyone needs such durability. Ruby, for example, is based entirely on her speed and anything which hinders that could pose more threat to her."

He spared the girl a glance, lying on her stomach on her own bed across the room in the corner, reading a comic in her pajamas. Smaller than all but Weiss, lithe, and thin, but strong enough to swing a scythe like hers and fast enough to make it hurt when it landed. That same speed granted her the edge she needed, and when she wasn't throwing herself into harm's way to save one of them, she could outpace almost anything that wanted to hurt her.

"Hm." He grunted, unconvinced even still, "Perhaps in her case, but-"

"Am I that different?" Weiss asked from the desk, rolling her eyes and turning in her chair to look at him. "Six people fought that Troll at Initiation, Jaune. Sky and Cardin were the first two, and one of them was killed. The during the bout itself, you and Pyrrha were both wounded in action, and Ruby was only hurt because she stepped in to help you two."

"I could've outrun it if I was by myself." She chipped in from the bed, not looking up from the comic she was reading. "Prooooobably wouldn't have been able to actually, you know, _kill it_ though. Not without help, but that was more thanks to what it was than anything to do with me. _Gotta_ be fair, you know?"

"End of the day, some are suited to that and some are not." Pyrrha finished, the blonde of the group grimacing where he sat on the bed, laying back against the wall and crossing his arms defiantly. He knew he was right, but convincing them was a losing battle at this point it seemed. "I have considered heavier armor in the past, but in the normal combat I saw and have seen yet, it just seems unnecessary."

"I still think that you'd all be safer if you-" He blinked, feeling his Scroll going off in his pocket, and fished it out. Skimming the message displayed, he sighed and stood. "I have to go and see the Headmistress, she wants to speak about a TER assignment for me, apparently. We'll talk about this all later."

"Yay…" Ruby cheered, Jaune giving her a sour look as he moved towards the door, the younger woman rolling her eyes and returning the look, "What? Kinda getting tired of the argument, you know?"

"As am I." Weiss added, raising her brow at Jaune and then scowling, "And now you have forced me into agreeing with the dolt. Truly, Arc, you are insufferable in some ways. Now get going, making the headmistress wait is unacceptable."

"Hmph." He shook his head, pulling the door behind him and sighing as he turned to make his way to the main office, grumbling about annoying women all the while. He'd keep trying to convince them, or let them convince him, of the truth of things.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

Jaune, unlike many of the less obedient students in Beacon, had not yet been called to the Headmistress' personal office. It was round, the walls lined with shelves laden with books, and at the center sat her desk. The desk was simple enough, a nice looking oak piece with little ornamentation aside from the Beacon Academy emblem emblazoned on the front. The floor was covered in a thick, soft carpet that turned the heavy steps of his uniformed shoes' footfalls into muted thumps.

And oddly enough, she wasn't alone in the office when he arrived, stepping out of the elevator and looking at the clearly Atlesian woman curiously.

"Jaune." Glynda said, smiling when his attention turned to her and he approached, taking a seat across from her with the Atlesian standing at the Headmistress' side. "I'm glad you came, Jaune. Before we begin the meeting, I'd like to introduce you to my… Associate, of sorts, Winter Schnee."

"Schnee?" He raised a brow, glancing to the uniformed woman, "You are related to Weiss, then?"

"Her sister, actually." The woman answered, smiling in a chipped sort of way that Jaune assumed to be her version of warm gratitude, judging by the context. "I am grateful, truly, that you stepped in to save my sister. She is skilled and shows promise, but she is also young and yet to reach it. I am in your debt for saving her life."

"You owe me nothing." Jaune returned simply, "I only did what any Hunter should do when faced with that kind of situation, Ma'am. I'm just glad that I managed to save the majority of the people there."

"Admirable." Winter noted, a thin brow raising at him almost approvingly before she looked to Goodwitch again, "He is skilled as you said, and I rather like his temperament as well. Something else you suggested I would be satisfied by. I have said as much before, but I quite approve of your tastes, Glynda. Do tell, though, how skilled is he?"

"I have had a couple small demonstrations." Glynda nodded, looking at Jaune and smiling almost mischievously. At what, Jaune had no idea, though. "I _do_ look forward to seeing a few more demonstrations, though. Particularly in… Other scenarios."

"I wonder how well he will be able to keep up with us." Winter added, humming in thought and looking at the young man. "Ah, but perhaps we ought to move on with business, Glyn? Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?"

"I shall, if you don't mind." The Schnee nodded politely, and Glynda turned back to Jaune, "You and your team agreed to participate in SETs, and the first assignment for you has come up. Winter and I are intending to mount a short expedition into Forever Fall ahead of a class assignment in the location. We need to ensure that it is safe and clear of any higher class Grimm, and another Troll has been reported by Winter's scouts in the area."

"It is matured fully, and as you were able to defeat one with no experienced support, I believe you will be able work well with us to fell the creature." Winter added, "My force is a small one, and can't engage it. Normally Glyn and myself would resolve this matter on our own, but she wished to add you to the matter."

"The standard bounty will be divided among us, and you will be granted excuse from all affected classes. You will also be granted extra credits and credit towards Apprenticeship minimum timed equalling the amount of time it takes to track the Troll and added to our own input." Glynda added, smiling knowling as she concluded, "Assuming, of course, you wish to go with us."

"Of course." He nodded, "When do we need to depart?"

"A day from now." Glynda answered, sounding and looking quite satisfied with something to do with the situation. What, he had no idea at all, but she was clearly satisfied by something that was going on. "Come with your armor and your weapon, supplies for the trip will be provided by Winter and myself."

"I look forward to working with you." Winter added, taking a step closer to Goodwitch and laying a hand along the back of her neck. "I hope you have a pleasant evening, Mister Arc. And send my sister my regards, and tell her that I shall see her when we return from our expedition."

He wished them goodnight and stood, heading for the door once again. When the door closed, he shook his head and sighed, "So damn confusing…"

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **Josh Spicer :**_

 **Stressful situations tend to breed stressful responses. S'just how people work.**


	7. Chapter 7

_**(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

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 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **So with several realizations of story lines and through lines, and with RWBY Volume 6 coming out, after this chapter this story will be going on hiatus for some time while I do research on items for it, plan things, and watch the Volume coming out for needed material. Hopefully, once the Volume is under way I will get the material I**_ **need** _**for the story to continue much further. I added a second fight scene, though, so… There's that, I guess?**_

 _ **Apologies for the inconvenience, in all seriousness.**_

 _ **Now to explain the delay. A server on Discord called 'Work in Progress' is responsible. It's horrible, truly. The rules are sometimes not even stated to you until you break one, the punishments are the same, the mods are biased in the extreme - one of them outright said to me 'I know how to deal with your kind to get rid of you for example - and genuinely just ruined my writing mood at every point. Several people were disruptive to conversations - yes, that's against the rules, no, they didn't get punished, yes, I got in trouble for asking them to leave me along - and just as many were rude and intolerant of basically anything that I said.**_

 _ **I left the server, because it was hindering my ability to work, after I politely asked someone who had already insulted me and dragged me through the mud three times - got in trouble once of course and I got in trouble two other times - to leave me alone and stop interrupting a conversation I was having.**_

 _ **Delays on that end are gone now, I just needed to vent a bit, you know. Ignore a prattling asshole.**_

 _ **~ Twisted**_

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

"Already?" Jaune asked, surprised when he felt the small Bullhead they were in - a private craft of Winter's, he guessed from the snowflake emblazoned on one side, mirrored by the Atlesian icon on the other - tilt its nose down slightly, coming in for a landing. Goodwitch looked to him with a raised brow, and he added, "I had assumed the trip would take longer, that is all."

"We have only gone part of the way as of now, Jaune. Though so long as nothing happens to prevent it, we should get all the way there quickly enough." She smiled coyly at him, and part of him wondered if that was some kind of joke. Instead, used to her by now, he dismissed it and reclined on the comfortable chair in the back of the small craft. Glynda chuckled at something, and added, "I'm happy, though, that Winter could secure this for us. It's far more comfortable than the standard Beacon ones."

And that was very much true, even if Jaune didn't really care much about that. But the interior was spacious enough, with two comfortable chairs facing the back of the craft and placed against the cockpit, and plenty of room in the back storage compartment for the things they'd needed. It wasn't terribly overly designed or decorated, made in the typical Atlesian blends of silver, white and grey, and with the typical curving style and functional design premises that most Atlesian tech tended to be developed towards. If he had to place his Lien, he'd have placed it on this being some kind of military transport made for officers or dignitaries. The heavier plating and heavy, twin machine guns mounted under its nose both pointed to that as being the most likely case, coupled with the insignias and Winter's ability to simply appropriate it for her own use.

"This mission is an official one." He murmured, an eyebrow raising ever so slightly at the idea while he scratched his chin, using the movement to subtly toss his medication into his mouth as well. Just in case. Glynda gave him a curious look and he shrugged, "Nothing, Headmistress Goodwitch, just… Thinking out loud, I suppose. What are the specifics of the plan for this expedition?"

"We will be scouting and Hunting the forests around Beacon Academy. In the process, we will clear out any and all Grimm we find, and chart out the kinds and their numbers." He raised his eyebrow again in curiosity and she answered, "Surveying, comparing the numbers of types of Grimm each year to guess the numbers in the next. An area with more Beowolves than anything else one year tends to have even more of them in the next, after all."

"Makes sense, even if they don't breed." Jaune shrugged, "They seem to produce from wherever they come from at regular intervals, so if those ones in particular are surviving the are, then more will keep stacking up on top of the survivors."

"A place with common and heavy storms will have more land-based Grimm compared to the avian or aerial draconic kinds than normal, yes." Glynda agreed, seeming to actually enjoy the conversation more than he'd expected. The indicators were small ones, of course, barely more than slightly turning to face him more and a small smile quirking the edges of her mouth in a pleased smile. "And if their numbers are not culled regularly, then they rapidly climb out of control. Which is why we're out here."

"It seems odd that esteemed Huntresses and staff would trust someone without license on such an important mission." He noted as diplomatically as he could, the question behind it clear as day. Still, Goodwitch simply gave him an amused - likely at his attempt to be subtle, if he had to guess - and he growled before adding, "Why would… Whoever authorizes this kind of thing, why would they let me be on it?"

"Because the person who requisitioned the contract was Winter, and the person who requested and processed it on Beacon's end was myself and the Headmaster." She answered, giving him a meaningful look, "In part, he hoped that allowing you to pursue field activities and do the duties demanded of a Huntsman would make all of this more pleasant for you. Pleasurable, even, if all goes as well as I hope it to in the end."

"It should." Jaune shrugged, smiling confidently, "Grimm like these shouldn't be a problem for me alone. And with you two with me? Little more than a particularly vigorous workout to enjoy."

"Vigorous indeed…" She chuckled and stood, leaning against his chair for support as the craft listed to the side, Winter probably looking for a place to land or trying to angle the landing itself properly to not ruin the craft. She laid a hand on his shoulder, her hip resting against his arm, and he swallowed at the sudden proximity. A proximity she ignored, adopting a more serious tone as she spoke, "You need to understand, Jaune, that it's us three alone out is an excellent combatant in melee, but she has little staying power, and I am almost purely a supporting fighter. If you get stuck in a brawl…"

"I'll be on my own, and need to protect myself while you work towards me." Jaune finished the thought for her, nodding understandingly and continuing in what others might have called a deathly calm voice, "It's why I am armed and armored, Ma'am. And how I was trained, as an aside."

"How you were trained?" She asked, curious now in a slightly different way than before. Less concern in her voice, more genuine curiosity or base thirst for knowledge. Which made sense, she seemed the type to enjoy knowing things.

"A combination style my father invented and experimented with when I was young." The young blonde answered, "Combines an old Mistralian principle of heavy armor and staying power with the Atlesian principle of a reliance on individual combat prowess and Aura usage to augment combat capabilities. That includes my Semblance, of course."

"Elemental infusion, correct?" He nodded, and she smiled almost sarcastically, "Not precisely a good Semblance for one meant to fight on their own, is it?" He simply shrugged, electing not to comment, and she continued, "Just be careful, Jaune."

"Hm." The woman opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off when the ship suddenly listed to the side, almost throwing her onto him. Outside, the muted whirring rattle of the chainguns blaring to life sounded, and he rose, gripping his seat in one hand and wrapping an arm around Goodwitch when she almost fell, looking into eyes so close he saw them widen at the proximity, "What is happening?"

"I am not-"

"Nevermore attacking, along with Fae." Winter's voice crackled across the intercom system wired throughout the ship, the craft jerking again as she adjusted her path suddenly. "Attempting evasive action and combating them, but there are a lot of Fae out there, and they're trying to get onto the transport."

"Fae…" He nodded, looking at the blonde woman, pressing her back into him and as much supporting his own standing as he supported hers. Grunting, he reached for the door's latch, "I'm going out there, Winter. Bypass the locking mechanisms."

"Negative, you'll get swarmed, Jaune, and we're at least fifty feet in the-" Something slammed into the hull and the woman suppressed a sound somewhere between a surprised noise and a swear, and then sighed into the microphone, sending static across the line. "Glyn, Fae on the outside, I can't detach them like that. Make a call, I can't split my attention further and Summon at the same time."

"Jaune." He looked over his armored shoulder at the woman, standing behind him intently and regarding him in the same way. "Do you have a plan?"

"Yes." He answered, plucking his axe from his back and testing the weight in his hand comfortably. His eyes looked to hers, and he simply said, "Trust me, or don't. Make the call, Glynda, so we can get to work. Before we end up a charred mass of steel and bone on the ground below, if you don't mind."

"Open the door, Winter." Goodwitch sighed finally, face setting into stone as a green light flickered on over the door and her own green eyes narrowed and hardened warningly. "You had better come back to me, Jaune Arc. Few are those in this planet to have tasted my lips, and if you waste that I shall not forgive you."

It was the first time she had actually mentioned the kiss outright, and he blinked slowly in surprise at the statement, a thousand questions springing into his head and demanding answers. But he schooled himself quickly enough, now was not the time for such an emotional reaction after all, and nodded stoically instead. He could always ask questions later, if he felt it necessary, after they were all assured of at least their own lives not being summed up with the image of so much raspberry jam smeared across the forest floor far below.

The door slid out and up along the top of the hull, and he had to brace his shield-arm against the edge of the door to avoid the pressure difference and the wind sucking him from the craft as Winter's piloting buzzed them along, trying to evade several Nevermore while Fae swarmed around the craft, trying to find purchase on the surface with their small claws. He hated Fae, more than almost any other kind of Grimm that there was, because of what they looked like.

Small and humanoid in shape, only slightly shorter than Jaune himself but with a more wiry and light frame to allow the large insectoid wings to lift them and propel them, Fae were mildly abnormal for Sanus. Especially so far inland, the creatures tended to favor islands and coastlines, and Menagerie as a whole. Large horns sprouted from the top of their heads, the bone-white plating making it almost look like an armored helmet, and stuck straight up in the air. Their torso, shoulders, and upper legs were all lightly armored in the typical Grimm plating, but lighter and overlapping almost like plated mail.

Mail that, when one shot at him with a bestial snarl and the hopes of boarding clear, did little to stop his axe biting down through its shoulder and across its torso. The two pieces fell away, and he leapt at the next as it closed with him like the first had, extending his shield as he flew into open air and slamming the rim into its jaw, and then _through_ it, decapitating it and hurling his axe at the next as his leap faltered and he began to fall. The blade bit into its chest and it staggered in the air, fluttering down slightly and gripping the axe-blade in what might have passed for shock.

Hoping almost enough to murmur a prayer, he held his shield out and activated the powerful magnet, pulling himself through the air and up a couple feet to the Grimm. Without anything to anchor him, even the light wingbeats of the creature were enough to anchor it more than him, and he smiled as he wrenched his axe free with a wet sound, the dying creature fluttering away weakly as he leapt at the next creature and roared, the sound as lost to the wind as the sound of his axe cutting through air flesh and bone was.

An arm and a wing fell at the wsing, and another Fae latched onto his back as the previous fell to its death far below, clawing at his armored back and chest weakly. Another lunged at his chest, and his axe lopped its head off, his left elbow slamming into the face of the one grappling him three times before its grip on his shoulders finally loosened and he turned in its grasp, using the blade of his axe to slit its throat and then kicking it away. Turning at movement in the corner of his eyes, those same eyes widened at the open maw of a Nevermore and his shield came up on instinct as the beak closed around him, planting his boots on either side of its beak and hoping the soles would hold up and feeling his shield press against his shoulder while he braced it above him.

Hefting his axe, he brought it up across his chest and into the Grimm's beak, where the bottom jaw hooked with the tip and into the skull. It cried out in pain every time his axe bit down, until he finally felt the bottom jaw fall out from under him, the creature reeling in pain while he started to fall, hurling his axe up and into the joint of its wing to pull himself up with the magnet again before he could fall too far.

On its shoulder, griping its feathers with his shield arm, he slid his grip to the bottom of the axe's handle and raised it, batting away one of the few Fae left and watching Winter's machine guns tear into a Nevermore to his side. Then he brought the axe down on the Nevrmore's joint, right where the wing connected, feeling flesh and bone slice away as he struck at it again and again. Finally, the limb went limp, and he let himself float off the creature and fell towards the ground without anymore convenient Nevermore or Fae to slow himself down.

Instead, he hurled the axe ahead of himself so hard it set him spinning, and used it and his shield to form a sort of magnet-grappling hook. The magnetism was nowhere near enough to stop him, but it did manage to slow a fall that would have smeared him into the ground into one that only sent him sprawling with a groan instead.

Little successes, had to take them sometimes.

Another Nevermore cried out overhead, and he groaned as he rose, pointing his shield at his axe embedded in a tree high above him. The magnet hummed, but the axe didn't budge, and he sighed as he looked up at the Grimm and spread his arms like the creature's wings as it prepared its attack, "Come on then, show me what you have then!"

It did, flashing its wings forward and sending a volley of feathers at him the size of ballista bolts and he slid into a defensive stance in the hopes of deflecting and dodging as many as he could manage. They made it a third of the way to him before they stopped, curving around in two swarms and back up at the Grimm, skewering it a thousand times as the transport craft circled for a landing finally.

Now he had to figure out how to get his axe down. Luckily, Goodwitch was around, so maybe she'd help him with her Semblance. Though, judging by her stormy expression as the craft came in to land, he doubted that somehow.

And this had supposed to have been a simple hunt.

"You're lucky to be alive, Jaune." Goodwitch said when they had finally landed and then trekked a short way to a small clearing that Winter had designated as their first campsite. Whether she meant from the Grimm or her own ire, "Leaping out of a flying vehicle, and using the Grimm to stay in the air… Insanity."

"It worked." He shrugged, cleaning the edge of his axe on a log in front of his small, green tent. One of two, the other belonging to Goodwitch and Winter, and sat across from the fire from him. "That should be what matters. And besides, did you not fling myself and others into the air at Initiation."

"That…" She trailed off, grimacing and sighing a moment later, "Alright, that is a rather good point, I suppose."

"You could have told us your intentions, though." Winter added, sitting beside the woman on another log. Like his, it had been a tree, until they'd made him cut it down for Glynda to break apart for fuel for their fire and seats to enjoy it. "We could have, and would have, supported you if you had just told us your intentions. Mounted machine guns are better against a Nevermore than a man fifty feet in the air with an axe, usually, after all."

"Hm." He grunted, raising his axe to check for any grime before setting it aside, watching the fire for a moment before finally speaking again, "I guess you have a point. I'll warn you next time, I promise."

"See that you do. I will not be reporting a student's death to Ozpin, or your team, because you saw fit to leap into a Nevermore's mouth." Goodwitch sighed, shaking her head and using her Semblance to toss a log into the fire. He made to respond, and her eyebrow rose warningly, so he relented and held his tongue with a grumble instead. "Now then, if everyone is comfortable, we should discuss our plans for tomorrow. The Trolls that were reported are _somewhere_ nearby, and finding them is our job."

That, at least, made sense to Jaune. Better than these troublesome women, at least. And do they have to cuddle so closely together? They had a fire, they couldn't possible be cold, and if they were they had blankets as well. Perhaps they just preferred something a bit more physical.

A thought Jaune went to pains to ignore as they planned out he next day's events. That way lay madness, he knew.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

Something about the forest, Jaune had always found, was simply wonderful to wake up to. The wind rustling through the trees, the clouds high above tinged in fiery hues of red and orange as the sun rose over the mountains surrounding Vale, matched by the leaves of the trees around him that themselves were like fire made form had grown from the ground itself to adorn the trees themselves. In the distance, almost out of hearing, Jaune could just manage to make out the sounds of birds singing and pecking at trees, and above that, a river nearby that bubbled along its path quietly.

To him, this was one of the most beautiful things in the world. And he sat, axe laid across his lap, whetstone scraping quietly and firmly across its edge methodically while he hummed and allowed himself to relax at least marginally, occasionally adding wood to the small fire he'd made to warm in the morning and make food when everyone awoke finally.

Which didn't take long, and he heard them rise long before they actually came out, the two women getting ready for the day inside their tents while he set some coffee on a small tripod next to the fire for them, and fished out some rations. Not a glorious meal, to be sure, but packed with protein and - possibly more importantly, in some ways - caffeine as well.

"Good morning, Jaune. I see you're making coffee for everyone." Goodwitch greeted, stretching as she joined him around the fire and catching the ration bare he gently pitched at her, sighing, "One thing I always know is coming and dislike, is these ration bars. Every last one has a flavor label, and every last one tastes like chalk."

"They do the job they are meant to do, that's all I ask for." Jaune responded, taking in the woman's outfit with a somewhat critical eye.

She'd traded out the skirt for tight fitted white pants, made of thick enough material to keep her warm and dry enough and almost definitely meant to add some protection as an aside. Along the seams on the sides white, swirling patterns traced along the outside of the woman's calf and thighs, probably Dust lacing to reinforce them and augment the woman's abilities if he had to guess. Lightly armored boots with the same swirls of frost-like patterns and short, almost nonexistent if he was honest, heels protected her lower legs and feet. A prohibitively expensive item to own and wear for a normal woman or even a normal Huntress, to be absolutely sure, but for the Headmistress of Beacon who herself was on friendly terms with a Schnee, Jaune doubted it beyond her.

Her top was an almost formal jacket, with a long coat-tail hanging down almost to her knees and long sleeves that reached her wrists, made of a thick black material that _looked_ like wool but almost certainly wasn't. Not in this weather, at least, it would be ridiculously hot in the normal weather for Vale around this time of year. Six silvery buttons kept the front of the coat closed, shining orange like molten metal with the reflections of the fire glancing off them while the woman ate the protein meal and reached for some of the fresh coffee. Similarly to her pants and greaves, if he could call them that, a pattern of white, swirling Dust laced her forearms like frost spider-webbing across her arms.

"I suppose that is true, Jaune." Goodwitch sighed tiredly, or perhaps frustratedly though she looked far more relaxed than he was used to. A small difference, to be sure, mostly set into how her shoulders rested and her relaxed posture, an ever-present small smile all on her lips. "Still, it would do no harm to _try_ and add some flavor to the blasted things. Winter always argues that point, though."

"Hm?" He looked at her, and she caught the question in the grunt. A talent, he felt, that few around him actually had.

"The ration bars are highly processed, condensed protein packs. Any flavor additives would degrade the amount of nutritional value in them, and thus the idea has been rejected by the Atlesian military." Winter's amused sounding voice called out from the tent, the sound of shifting metal catching his attention and interest. "And I smell coffee already, Glyn. You _can't_ have worked so fast."

"Jaune set it on the fire, Winter." The older blonde answered, taking a sip of it and sighing contentedly, "Gods, the one decision the Headmaster made I like the most was purchasing those Mistralian coffee plantations and placing them under a Beacon production license."

"Beacon Academy owns its own coffee plantations?" Jaune asked, sounding only mildly confused. Why would a Hunter Academy ever have need of something like coffee plantations?

"Extra Lien, and a supply chain upgrade as well." Goodwitch answered simply, drumming her fingers on the side of the mug as she spoke. "The Headmaster enjoys his coffee, and does so in large quantities. Doctor Oobleck does as well and while we don't meet their intakes, both Professor Port and myself partake quite a bit, alongside the rest of the staff. This also gives us something cheap to add to our Expeditionary packs, for hunts like these."

"Hm." He nodded, taking a mug for himself and taking a sip of the hot, rich liquid. It would make sense and be rather useful to have the plantations for supply and Lien both. Caffeine could be useful on missions, as could a hot drink that tasted good enough to at least mildly enjoy. "You would think, then, that Beacon would look into better ration bar formulas."

"Unfortunately, Winter is… Correct in what she says." Goodwitch sighed, finishing hers and tossing the wrapper into the fire, watching the paper and treated aluminium flare up in a bright flash of color before it melted. "Processing in flavoring additives would dilute it too much in its actual tasks, and the Headmaster has not approved any proposals to that end. Which may be for the best, given everything."

"As I always say, Glyn." Winter said simply, almost teasingly, as she stepped out of the tent finally and Jaune turned to examine _her_ chosen heavy combat gear. And a pleasant emphasis on the _heavy_ in that sentence.

Unlike Goodwitch, who favored just enough durability to take a hit but not so much as to slow her at all and instead used her combat gear to accentuate her _offensive_ capabilities through Dust enhancement and mobility. Winter, on the other hand, seemed to fall much more in line with Jaune himself, wearing gear that seemed designed more for outright protection than evasion.

Heavy steel greaves with round pieces protecting the knees and short heels protected her lower half, and light but no doubt strong chainmail on her thighs under the light skirted mail that added protection to the upper parts of her thighs where armor would hinder movement too much to wear. Under that, when he looked closer, he could see the white of her uniform pants as well. Probably a thing meant to add comfortability to the equipment, or perhaps that Atlesian modularity he had heard so much of that insisted everything have a base and simply be able to have more attached or layered atop it.

A heavy leather belt with fine looking silver stitchings held the small armor-skirt, and off the back hung long cloth coattails not unlike Goodwitch's own, though they looked somewhat thicker and more suited to absorbing direct damage. Several leather pouched with Winter's family insignia stitched onto their weathered looking fronts hung off of both hips, probably loaded down with Dust for her to use in combat, the same swirling patterns of Dust augmentation covering the metal and cloth of her armor and adding to its strength and her abilities.

Her upper body was protected by a rounded cuirass-esque design, made of thick looking steel and probably over top of her uniform shirt - thought he doubted she wore the coat as well - judging by the presence of her pants. It was slightly rounded, to deflect claws, blades and bullets away in a way that wouldn't force her body to bear the blow directly or affect her momentum too much to bare. The metal of her chest-plate was inscribed like elsewhere in white swirling patterns that also looked like Dust inscriptions, and looked more than just high quality.

Rounded pauldrons that angled like her cuirass covered her shoulders, and under them he could see the white sleeves of her undershirt between light looking chain, with swirling white Dust inscription adorning it as always. The rest of her arms were covered in light looking and moderately simple plated gauntlets and plated armor with the same elegant inscriptions, one of those gauntlets holding her thin saber and testing the grip absently.

"You always argue it though, which is so like you, Glynda." The woman chuckled, evidently satisfied with the grip of her weapon. Sheathing it, she took a long step towards Jaune too accept an offered mug and ration bar and then joined Goodwitch, adjusting her armor as she did. "Thank you for making the coffee, Jaune. I appreciate the caffeine in the morning more than you might know."

"Hm. Just let me know when we're ready to move on." He grunted, tearing open a ration bar to dig into himself.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

Tracking the trolls was an easy enough job, once they got to the task. Given their prodigious size they tended to blunder and smash their way through underbrush, and left large prints in soft earth as an aside, as well as the occasional crushed limb or fallen tree where the path the creatures - for two of them were together, oddly enough given their typically loner nature as Grimm - had been taking was blocked by too many clustered too close together for them to bother going around. The journey was undertaken in silence as well, aside from the sounds of their armor clinking gently, sticks crunching under them as they went and the occasional whispered commands from Goodwitch or Winter behind him.

It suited Jaune just fine, of course, it meant that he could listen ahead of them as he lead and they followed. He was, according to them both, 'the best of them for taking a proper beating and not dying from it.' Goodwitch had smirked when she said that in that way she tended to do so often, but he chose to take that as a compliment, backhanded and teasing as it may have been.

It wasn't exactly like they were _wrong_ , after all. He did pride himself on being the most durable fighter in the room at any given moment, and if they just ran across them then he'd be the one to get hit instead of either of the others, which was frankly according to his preference.

The duo, when they found them, were huddled low over a tree they had uprooted and dragged into a clearing, the two working together to clear the branches and smooth the trunk into a weapon. They used their claws for both jobs, smoothing the wood with the claws and cutting away branches before finally cracking the oak into two pieces and sitting back to back, working on the massive clubs together.

"A pair of them together, like we feared and the scouts suggested could be the case. And they lost their weapons at some point apparently, too." Winter observed, kneeling between them behind a thick bush. One of the creatures snorted, looking around, then snorted again and set back to its task. "Our scent is already beginning to catch in the wind. We don't have long before they sniff us out."

"Jaune, can you hold off one while we kill the other?" Goodwitch asked, the younger blonde nodding curtly and reaching back with a hand to finger the haft of his axe familiarly. "You don't need to _kill it_ , Jaune. Just stall it for a minute or so, and then we can kill it."

"I'll be fine, Headmistress." He assured her, plucking the axe off his back and nodding. "Are you attacking from elsewhere, or here? It will be hard to stage a distraction if they see us approach together."

"We will allow you to attack first, and simply follow you in." Winter answered, "Our scents will attract their attention before we reach any better positions that we are currently in, unfortunately. Whenever you are ready, Jaune, I want you to rush them and then bolt to the side of one. Which doesn't matter, just one of them."

Nodding, and without another word, he rose and stepped out of the bushes and into the clearing. It took three long steps before they spotted him, snarling and rising, leaving their unfinished clubs behind as they moved to face him and he circled to the left with his shield raised warily. The two creatures, unsure of what he was doing, hesitated for a moment before they split apart and circled to either side of him carefully.

Inside a couple minutes, Jaune was in the center of the clearing between their unfinished wooden weapons and where he'd started, and smiled as they started to lumber towards him from several feet away. One, impatient, roared and made to charge, only to fall as a small, bronze circle sprang to life ahead of it, images like clockwork spiraling to life as its foot landed and then _shot_ out from under it and sent it sprawling.

Its fellow turned at its tumble and Jaune charged, taking two steps and turning, hurling his axe at the creature's chest and burying the blade deep into the flesh just under its throat. It bellowed in surprised pain, and its fellow made to rise as several massive shards of ice the size of Jaune himself flew from the treeline and buried themselves into the creature's lower chest, five massive spears of solid ice buried in it and jutting from the other side as the creature staggered to the side.

The cold, he knew, would hinder its regeneration and let his companions kill it easier. Recalling his axe, he charged his own opponent and rolled under a clumsy fist, claws gouging a trough of soil out behind him as he rolled past it and turned, bringing his axe into the back of its knee and earning a howl. It staggered but didn't fall, and he yanked the axe free and slammed it into the cut again, the Grimm finally staggering and falling to a knee.

Jaune let it fall away, the axe coming free and then slamming down into its upper shoulder, and leapt onto its back, using the axe as a handle to climb it. The creature roared, in defiance or pain he didn't know, but when it swept an arm back at him in an effort to catch him all it got was the rim of his shield driving between two fingers as hard as he could manage.

It snarled and rose, knee healed already, and Jaune grabbed one of its horns in his shield hand while he yanked the axe free and held on for dear life. Raising the axe out to the side, he slammed it into the side of the creature's neck once, then a second time after he lopped off two fingers on a hand that reached for him as the creature staggered around and tried to shake him off. The shape of its chest and back meant, unfortunately for it, that it couldn't reach up with both arms to try and get at him.

So when his axe bit down a third time, the creature wheezed weakly and its head lolled, sinking to its knees as Jaune yanked the blade free and then hacked again. This time, the head came free, and Jaune leapt off as the body collapsed forward, dropping the head and then resting his axe across his shoulders, turning to look at the other as it began to dissolve and the women reached him.

"What next?" He asked simply, the two exchanging glances before either explained.

"A few days' patrolling, making sure no others are around, and then a return home." Winter explained, gesturing past the trees with her sword, "Lead the way, if you will, Jaune. I'll make sure to keep an eye on you."

That sounded ominous, but Miss Goodwitch seemed amused by it, so he let it go before he started trying to figure out women. That way lay madness after all, as he often told himself whenever a woman did something strange.

 _ **(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)**_

 _ **Mo Eazy :**_

 **Partially my mistake, partially on purpose. He has some modicum of respect for them, so he** _ **is**_ **a touch more relaxed, but my fault for it slipping a bit too far.**

 _ **Smokey Panda :**_

 **XD**

 _ **Josh Spicer :**_

 **Complexity of a chapter is also a thing with me, I don't like to do anything but put my best into each chapter if I can help it. This chapter is also short, but that's because of the fight scene and the layered conversation. They take a lot of time to write, you see. I'm still not wholly satisfied by the fight, but bah.**


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